The Fabrics of Time: Living Memory
by Twilitbeing
Summary: Many months have passed since the fall of the Metarex, and Tails has all but given up on finding a way to correct what went on there. However, a visitor who arrives purely by accident may offer him an opportunity to do just that. Part one of three.
1. Prologue: Without a Trace

Hello, and thanks for checking out part one of my new series entitled The Fabrics of Time. In my opinion, the Sonic X series lends itself very well to the genre of science fiction, and I'm surprised that more people haven't done fanfictions in that style. The prologue you're about to read was actually written after Chapter 1, and as such is very short. Also, I didn't want to hint too much about the future here, so I intentionally avoided stating any names. If you're interested,read on, and feel free to give me your opinions.

******DISCLAIMER: **I do not claim ownership of the Sonic franchise or any associated characters, locations, or events. All non-franchise characters, locations, and events contained or referenced in this publication are of my own design. Elaboration on the Sonic franchise or any associated characters, locations, or events is not intended to infringe on the copyright protection of same. The sole intended purpose of this fictional work is entertainment. (As if that didn't go without saying.)

**14Apr2012: **Revised and updated.**  
**

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**Prologue – Without a Trace**

_Location undisclosed_

_Time undisclosed_

An explosion shattered the near-silence inside the cockpit. The gunship rocked to one side, stabilized quickly, and accelerated. Behind her, the much larger craft in pursuit did the same, easily keeping pace with its quarry. It fired again; the gunship swerved hard to port, narrowly avoiding the crude but deadly metal slug hurled at her. The pilot countered with a shot of his own, a missile, but the cruiser's heavy armor shrugged off the explosion effortlessly.

"Outer hull integrity approaching three-fourths maximum," a calm, electronic voice announced inside the cockpit. "Evasive maneuvers ineffective. Disengage and seek support."

"Thank you," the pilot replied sarcastically. He had been trying to outrun the larger vessel for what felt like over an hour, with little success. How such a heavily armored beast was able to keep up with a gunship designed for speed seemed to defy the laws of motion. "What's wrong with all the _dead_ ships they leave out here? Spineless, bottom-feeding Marauder-"

At that moment, something very heavy and fast rammed into the ship, lodging in her engine output. The hit jostled the pilot halfway out of his harness, cutting short whatever insults he hadn't already listed. He pulled himself back into the seat and opened the throttle to the maximum setting.

What happened next, he would later realize, caught him entirely off-guard. The very instant the engine fired, it ignited the contents of the unusual slug inside. The resulting explosion blew the propulsion system in half and tore through the gunship's interior, hurling shreds of red-hot metal the length of the cabin. A steel airlock slammed shut, sealing the aft quarter to prevent precious air from escaping. Looking out the window to his left, the pilot saw the Marauder cruiser advancing alongside the gunship. It began to close the distance between them, opening a brightly-lit hangar to accept its prize.

"Oh, no, you don't," the pilot growled. He armed a row of cannons along the gunship's port side and, aiming into the newly-created gap in the cruiser's armor, fired. A cone of fire and rubble burst from the hangar after a short delay, knocking the behemoth off course, while recoil from the broadside volley sent the gunship spiraling away into space.

The pilot stood and clambered to a station behind the vacant copilot's seat. Seeing with immense relief that the explosion had not damaged it, he stepped into the small alcove. An array of panels unfolded and moved in rings around his body, waves of magnetic force shooting between them. The pilot tapped several keys in quick succession, then spoke a voice command: "Energize in five." He focused with all his might on a distant, blue-green world, utterly unknown to most nations and equally unaware of them.

When the timer reached two seconds, an impact greater than any before rocked the gunship: the cruiser had recovered and scored a direct hit. The pilot lost his footing, slammed into the opposite wall, and fell heavily to the wildly swaying floor. The timer reached zero. There was a blinding flash and a brief image of a part of space that was not space, and the gunship vanished.


	2. Chapter 1: Living With Pain

A lot of this chapter is a recap of _Sonic X_'s third season, partly for the benefit of people who never watched the series. Readers may want to go back and read my previous story, _The Möbius Cycle_, if you haven't already; it will become relevant later.

**25Mar2012:** Uploaded a revised version; no major plot changes. **14Apr2012:** Minor formatting change.

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**Chapter 1 – Living With Pain**

_Residence of Miles Prower, Angel Island – Green Hill zone, Möbius_

_Time unavailable_

Grief is a curious thing. The pain of losing a close friend cannot be compared or described, for it never takes the same form twice. It can drain the will, leaving little more than tired souls scattered like fallen leaves on the surface of a stream. It may be the most powerful force beyond the visible universe, a deeper well of strength than ambition or generosity could ever hope to be. In some cases, it manifests as nothing more than silent and desolate emptiness.

Tails sat before a desk in his Angel Island workshop, a row of monitors lighting his face with a pale glow. It was sometime past two in the morning; his eyes were heavy from tiredness, but nothing else felt like sleeping. He rubbed his face without thinking, then groaned as he realized he had just missed the critical moment again. He was studying a series of videos taken at the center of the galaxy – the only surviving record of events that had decided countless fates. Just thinking about the battle had once been unbearable, but time marches on. Tails could recall the events that leading up to that day of ultimate destruction with surprising clarity.

The story had begun many months ago, when a young alien girl appeared within a meteor shower and crashed on the surface of Möbius. Introducing herself as Cosmo of _Spring Dawn_, she warned them of a threat rapidly approaching their planet. A mysterious faction of warriors known as the Metarex had begun a campaign to conquer every planet in the galaxy.

First contact had come only hours later. A self-piloted craft descended from orbit, performed a brief survey, and set fire to the dense jungle surrounding Mystic Ruin. Despite its small size, the lone machine had easily repelled their attacks and departed after the completion of its task, leaving nearly a square mile of forest to burn down to ashes. According to Cosmo, the Metarex had extracted Möbius's life force and converted it into a crystalline form to use as an energy supply. With its "Planet Egg" stolen, she explained, their world would gradually decay into little more than a lifeless desert.

Tails, Sonic, and their closest friends and companions had immediately decided to give chase. Serving as the first crew of the newly-christened _Blue Typhoon_ (a prototype aerial battleship refitted for space flight and interstellar travel), Möbius's time-tested "Sonic Team" had set off in pursuit of their home's life force with Cosmo serving as their guide. Commanded by Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, the _Crimson Egg_ and its crew of robots and mercenaries had dogged the _Typhoon_'s footsteps in secret, following a complex strategy that ignored any concept of "ally" or "enemy."

Over the course of their journey, they encountered other victims of Metarex operations. Breezee – the atmosphere drained of heat, locking its ecosystems in a permanent winter. Hydoo – fertile lowlands covered in a lifeless sea, pushing a primitive agricultural society to the brink of starvation. Marmolim – the site of an extraction gone wrong, grown completely through its core by a strange infection. Chystar, Cascade, Green Gate, and countless thousands whose names they would never know – long since harvested, their deaths complete. They gradually learned of Cosmo's history with the Metarex – how one of their warships had attacked _Spring Dawn_, the space colony where she was born, and left her as the only survivor. They learned that the Metarex were actually descendants of Cosmo's people, a race of plant-animal symbionts known as Seedrians, divided and ultimately destroyed by a centuries-old war.

After weeks of sabotage and undercover warfare, the two Möbian crews joined forces to uncover the true nature of the Metarex campaign. The stolen Planet Eggs were being moved into Sector 0-0-0, the space surrounding the galaxy's core, in preparation for a large-scale collective discharge orchestrated via Chaos Control. The intent was simple and unforgiving: bring about the extinction of every consumer species in the galaxy, leaving plants and plant symbionts to take their place. Worse yet, the Metarex had collected enough Planet Eggs to initiate this process of "Forestation," and the project's final stage would soon begin.

The allied _Typhoon_ and _Crimson Egg_ arrived in Sector 0-0-0 to find the assembled Metarex Navy and its three surviving commanders: the last Seedrians of Green Gate, known only by their callsigns of Black Narcissus, Pale Bay Leaf, and Dark Oak. The two ships began a full frontal assault on the fleet guarding the center – a hopelessly outmatched charge that, by all logic or tactical wisdom, should have been annihilated without a second thought. No more than a dozen Metarex vessels ever seemed to notice their presence, and the lack of resistance had baffled Tails ever since.

Despite the Möbians' best efforts, the mechanism for Forestation had taken shape. Before their eyes, the three Metarex commanders transformed into a gargantuan tree that housed their combined consciousness. Powered by the seven Chaos Emeralds, thousands of Planet Eggs, and a massive spatial distortion that emitted light drawn from who-knew-where, the plant grew with impossible speed, enclosing the entire anomaly in a planet-sized shell of roots. This was the conclusion of the Seedrian life cycle, twisted and weaponized through Metarex technology. The spent Emeralds were ejected into space, and under the commanders' control, Forestation's final stage began.

Tails caught himself. He needed to keep his emotions in check, to think rationally about what had happened next. Tails remembered that event all too clearly. He had shouted at Sonic, broken down in tears, demanded to know how he could possibly have failed, how they could have won the battle and yet lost so much...

He needed to focus. _The seed_, he instructed his unruly thoughts. _Sonic gave you a seed._

Upon their return home, Tails had done the only thing that seemed to make sense: he had planted the seed. It had since grown into a tiny sprig of a plant, vibrantly green and bearing several pairs of new leaves. It showed every sign of becoming a sun-loving, earth-feeding, perfectly normal Möbian hardwood; few would ever suspect it was the last of its kind. Tails had resolved to keep it alive. It might be an ordinary tree, but he would make it the tallest, strongest, and most beautiful tree in the world if that was what it wanted to be.

Seedrians had a special connection with trees in his mind. Cosmo's affinity for plant life had run deeper than anything he could think of for comparison; it was a powerful and complex sixth sense that transcended every barrier Tails expected to find between organisms. He remembered his first glimpse of the connection during the landing on Breezee. Cosmo had rested her head against an alien tree she had never seen before – not even a real "plant" in the eyes of a Möbian biologist – and seemed to _become_ the tree. She might have been frozen like the hard-packed snow she stood on, so profound was her empathy for the suffering winter world in that moment.

The computer display froze, switching to a "Playback Complete" message in dark red text. Tails shook his head, annoyed at his own lack of focus, and rewound the video again. It occurred to him that only one five-second stretch could contain what he was looking for; he located the critical point and played the file at reduced speed, examining each shot in order.

A golden bulge of light swelled from somewhere below the camera and stretched out in a cone, the two sides intersecting with a dark mass in the distance. A single frame consisted of a solid white screen and maximum readings across several blocks of the light spectrum. Glowing cracks spread over the surface of the mass, spilling out more light even as the trail from the Sonic Driver started to fade. The flood of radiation grew until it masked everything else onscreen. The various recorded measurements followed, blacking out into error messages or hovering uselessly at the tops of their scales.

Tails sat back with a frustration that had become dry and automatic. That was the problem: at the very point where anything of interest might have occurred, every instrument on the ship became woefully inadequate. Many of the ship's computers had actually crashed, rounding one digit too far and literally attempting to divide by zero, unable to make sense of the astronomical energy readings. There was simply no way to tell what the anomaly had done after the Sonic Driver was fired.

Tails caught a glimpse of his clock; it was after three. He decided he had better sleep on this, since he wasn't going to get much farther tonight. Already yawning from the thought, the fox turned off the monitors. Before he even thought to get up from his seat, he was soundly asleep.


	3. Chapter 2: New Findings

No reviews... I sure hope you guys aren't trying to give me any hints, 'cause I don't pick up on those very well. Anyway, this chapter is pretty long for me; this is when the story really starts moving. If you're interested, read on.

**14Apr2012: **Revised and updated. I've taken some liberties with the names of locations: Angel Island is the floating landmass itself, Mystic Ruin is the Emerald's shrine and site of the ancient echidna city, and "zones" are legally-defined government districts. (Taking the place of national borders after the global G.U.N. regime was established? Yeah, let's go with that.)

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**Chapter 2 – New Findings**

_Residence of Miles Prower, Angel Island – Green Hill zone, Möbius_

_6:20 AM local time_

Lightning flashed, thunder split the air, and Tails jerked awake. It took a few seconds before he realized he was holding his breath. He looked around at the unusual darkness on every side, spotting a small chink of light somewhere behind him. His memory of the previous night returned and made sense of what he was seeing – a small stretch of sunlight between the long shadow of his house and the end of the landing strip. _Must have fallen asleep at my desk,_ he thought drowsily. He got up and made his way toward the stairs that led upward into the house proper.

Upon reaching the level above to his workshop, Tails was able to see more clearly; unlike the garage, which was mostly below ground, his house had windows. He glanced at a wall clock: 6:24 in the morning. Turning toward the east, he saw a pale light creeping up the horizon over the ocean – not a full sunrise, but getting close to it. He couldn't see a single cloud in the sky.

_Weird,_ Tails mused. _Could've sw__orn I heard a thunderstorm…_ He shrugged to himself; it wouldn't be the first time he had mistaken a dream for reality.

Despite having only slept for about three hours, Tails realized he felt wide awake; the chilly, high-altitude morning air had arrived right on schedule. He knew it would be another few hours before anyone else was awake, and he couldn't think of anything to do with himself until then. He looked out the window again, tilting his ears as well to catch the subtle outdoor sounds. No sign of the mysterious storm, and very little wind except for a slight breeze coming in from the sea. Perfect weather for flying.

* * *

The _Tornado_ lifted away from the garage and up into the air, swiftly climbing the gentle headwind. Had Tails had a destination in mind, he might have taken his jet instead; as it was, the agile, powder-blue biplane would suffice. Its single propeller was quieter than a pair of turbofans, and Tails liked having an open cockpit when it was safe to use one. He guided the plane on a straight course, passing beyond a series of steep bluffs and suddenly finding himself several hundred feet above the ground. Trees, hills, and smooth grassy plains stretched out below him for miles, punctuated only by the occasional small building or road. He accelerated, banking left and following a course parallel to the shoreline. Behind him loomed the impressive silhouette of Angel Island, hovering like a massive, forested cloud over a deep depression lined with cliffs and natural rocky terraces. This was a region of the world set apart from the dense, congested cities farther down the coast or the suburban sprawl to the west. Here, nature was still the guiding force of life.

As Tails absorbed the scenery, he noticed something out of place – a thin trail of gray fog twisting up from a spot just outside Angel Island's shadow. The young fox thought it might be a forest fire at first, but something about the amount of smoke and the small area of its source told him otherwise. He pulled the _Tornado_ into a descending left turn and flew down to investigate.

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_Mystic Ruin, Angel Island – Green Hill zone, Möbius_

_6:20 AM local time_

Knuckles was the first to hear the sound, so intense and so close that it seemed to come from every direction at once. He looked up to see a rippling halo of light in midair, its center a deep void flickering in every imaginable color. An instant later, something burst out of the confusion inside, followed immediately by a flash of white and a deafening _CRACK_ similar to a lightning strike. Knuckles turned away and clapped both hands over his ears, turning back only when the sonic boom had passed. The object streaked toward the forest like a flaming arrow, vanishing beneath the canopy and sending up a spray of debris. Its path ended abruptly against a thick tree trunk, accompanied by a single plume of fire and the screech of tearing metal.

Knuckles made his way to the cliff and leaned cautiously over the edge, trying to see where the object had landed. Parts of the ground were visible where it had smashed through the tangle of vines and smaller branches; many of the broken ends looked charred. He couldn't catch a glimpse of the object itself.

_It might have been a meteor,_ Knuckles reasoned, stepping back from the cliff. _It certainly left a mark like one. There was definitely something weird about the way it just... popped in like__ that._ The echidna turned away from the cliff and sprinted off, heading for the path that would take him down to the mainland.

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_Impact site, Angel Island vicinity – Green Hill zone, Möbius_

_6:35 AM local time_

Tails brought the _Tornado_ into a low flyover, moving as slowly as possible to allow himself a good look at the crash site. It resembled a meteorite landing – a diagonal path cleared through the trees, many burns around the edges – but the path of destruction looked much too large and irregular. A rock of the necessary size would have enough momentum to smash through several _miles_ of forest, to say nothing of the shock waves it would produce on its way down. Tails decided he needed to get a better look and flew off to locate a suitable place to land.

He found that place not far away at the edge of a large clearing. He brought the plane in for a smooth landing on a naturally flat plain near a small, one-story building with a red A-frame roof. A sign nailed above the door read "Chaotix Detective Agency." Someone inside heard the landing and came flying out through one of the windows. Tails recognized the tiny figure of Charmy Bee, the organization's youngest member. "Hey, Tails!" he called as he approached, slowing to hover beside the plane. "What's going on?"

"I'm not really sure," Tails replied. "I saw smoke from the air, and I thought I should check it out." He got out of the cockpit and clambered onto the _Tornado_'s top wing to get a better view. "Whatever it is, it's about an eighth of a mile in that direction," he continued, pointing.

Charmy looked. "Oh, _that_ way? Yeah, I think something crashed over there."

"Did you see what it was?"

"Not really," he replied. "I heard a noise, like thunder… no, more like an airplane just flew by really, _really_ fast. I came running outside, and I saw something fall into the forest, all on fire and spinning like crazy." He suddenly froze, his eyes widening. "You think it might've been a UFO?" he asked excitedly.

"Maybe," Tails answered distractedly, still staring at the column of smoke. "We'll know once we find the spot where it fell." He hopped down from the plane, hovering for a second near the ground to break his fall, then set off toward the crash site with Charmy in tow.

"Wouldn't that be _awesome_ if it really is a UFO?" the bee continued. "I've never seen an alien before!"

"Yes you have," Tails reminded him, amused. "You knew- You three fought the Metarex with us, remember?"

Charmy looked taken aback at this. "Oh. Well, I don't mean that kind. I'm talking about the others, the green ones with giant black eyes and flying saucers and…" He continued like this for several minutes. Tails barely listened to the bee's chattering; his mind was busy with the possible implications of what Charmy had said earlier – the sound like a supersonic jet, and how it had come several seconds before the crash. Normal meteors (indeed, anything creating a sonic boom) couldn't be heard until after they passed, so there was a good chance this was something else entirely.

"…those weird experiments they do on people-" Charmy paused for breath. "So, what do you think it is?" he asked, abruptly changing from monologue to question. It took Tails a few seconds to detect the switch.

"What? Oh, I'm not really sure," he answered. "I think you might be right – maybe not a spaceship, but some kind of vehicle. Meteorites don't explode in midair." That wasn't always true, strictly speaking, but this wasn't the best time for a lesson in high-velocity aerodynamics. "We'll know soon enough; we should be getting close."

Indeed, less than a minute later they reached a small clearing that looked distinctly unnatural. The dark topsoil had been gashed deeply, exposing the red clay below. At one end of the gash, a mound of recently-disturbed earth partially obscured a large, metallic shape. Smoldering peat moss and damp charcoal littered the ground; here and there a flame sputtered weakly.

Charmy hovered over to inspect the piled dirt. Tails followed on foot, walking along the ever-deepening slash in the forest floor. As he neared the object, he noticed something unusual: the surface felt harder than it should have, like walking on tile. He tapped his shoe against it twice; it answered with a soft _ping-ping_. The clay had hardened into ceramic, fired like pottery in a kiln. The object, whatever it was, must have been extremely hot.

Tails walked up to one side of the mound and examined to half-buried shape closely. It was definitely metal; what paint had not been burned or scraped away was a peculiar shade of pale green. Backing up, he looked at the object as a whole and realized for the first time what it was: a spaceship, its stout, tapered cylinder of a body completely unfit to fly anywhere else. From what Tails could see, it had no wings, only a number of large fins arranged around one end and smaller ones about a third of the way along its length. The hull was rent and punctured in countless places; fire still streamed from one of the ruptured pipes. The bow and starboard side of the ship were buried against the roots of a stout tree; he was standing on the port side, and the rear exhaust was to his right.

"Hey, look, you can see the inside from here," Charmy called. He was higher up the edge of the ditch, pressing his face against a small area of exposed glass that was evidently part of the canopy. Tails made his way up to the spot where the bee was, and Charmy moved aside to let him look through. Very little was visible inside other than the controls. It was obvious from the further damage inside that the ship had taken a beating, probably even before it crashed. There was no sign of anyone on board, though he knew there had to be a pilot somewhere.

At that moment, the two heard something behind them in the forest, rapidly coming closer. They both turned in time to see a familiar crimson echidna charge out of the forest. Knuckles stopped at the edge of the clearing and leaned forward with his hands on his knees, panting hard. This was not surprising; after all, he had just run several miles from the shrine on Angel Island. He didn't seem to notice that anyone else was there until he regained his breath and looked up.

"Tails?" he asked, slightly surprised. "What are you… whoa." He fell silent as he spotted the crashed ship, and slowly walked forward toward it. "So this is what fell," he said thoughtfully.

Tails wasn't really paying attention. "It's pretty obvious this thing didn't just fall," he muttered to himself, "otherwise it would have come straight down. To follow a path like that, either it didn't have a lot of momentum, or someone was controlling the fall."

Charmy overheard this. "Do you mean there's still someone in there?"

Tails hesitated; he hadn't thought of that. "It's possible. If there is anyone in there, he or she's probably in pretty bad shape after a crash like that."

"But how do we get in?" the bee asked, hovering next to the exposed hull. "There's only one door, and I can't figure out how to open it."

"There's probably a terminal somewhere," Tails replied, beginning to feel for gaps in the hull. After about a minute, Knuckles grew impatient. He drew back an arm and punched the door, causing Tails to jump badly and leaving an inches-deep dent. As they watched, the echidna took hold of the now-exposed edge and pulled with both hands, tearing it loose. Wordlessly, he tossed the mangled section of hull to one side and dusted off his hands. Tails stared for a moment, then shrugged and stepped inside the craft.

The cabin was mostly dark, lit only by a sliver of pale morning light that filtered in through the small exposed area of the canopy. As his eyes adjusted to the dim interior, Tails was able to make out details. The door through which they had entered was near the stern; a closed bulkhead stood to his right, painted with black and yellow emergency stripes and symbols he didn't recognize. Directly across from him was a small alcove containing a seat and a set of controls. The fox stepped farther inside, and Charmy and Knuckles followed.

More of the alcoves lined the walls. There were a total of seven running the length of the cabin, all identical. Beyond these were two cylindrical depressions in the walls. One was lined with what looked like sensory arrays; its function was anyone's guess. The other consisted of unpainted steel and featured a sliding door, now hanging erratically in a half-open position. At the foremost end were two seats, one each for a pilot and copilot, as well as a large instrument panel. The entire cabin looked like a miniature disaster zone: shards of metal and acrylic littered the floor; the copilot's console had something sharp embedded in it, and the bulkhead behind them, though securely shut, was framed by soot-stained walls.

"What happened in here?" Charmy wondered, hovering past Tails and toward the bow. "This thing looks really trashed!" Tails didn't reply; he had had a growing sense of familiarity ever since he arrived at the crash site. After staring around the cabin for another moment, it finally clicked: this looked just like Cosmo's ship immediately after her own violent landing.

"There's no way anything got _this_ dinged-up from a crash," Knuckles commented. "Look at this." He picked up a fragment of metal from the floor, and Tails stepped over to take a closer look. The shard was about a foot long and a few inches wide. The edges were jagged from a torn weld line, but a smooth, wavy pattern covered the rest of the metal as if it had been melted. "This came from an explosion," Knuckles said.

"Yeah, I was thinking about that myself," Tails echoed, nodding. "I think the pilot might have been in battle, and came here to make an emergency landing. The explosion we heard might have been weapons fire."

"I don't think so," Knuckles said. "I saw this thing appear; it was by itself, and it... didn't come in the normal way. I don't know what to tell you, except I've never seen anything like it. One second there's nothing there at all, and the next…" He hesitated, trying to compose his thoughts into words. "There was a flash, and then... maybe my eyes were playing tricks on me, but it looked there was a hole in the sky, with some weird version of outer space on the other side. It was only there for an instant, then it disappeared and send out the shock wave – probably what you two heard. I saw something fall into the forest." The echidna paused again. "I don't have a clue what I saw, Tails, but it wasn't normal."

Before Tails could say anything in reply, Charmy called them: "Hey, guys, check this out!" He was hovering near the edge of the silver shaft, peering down into the darkness below. It looked like a small elevator or crawlspace used to access a lower deck; many ships this size had cargo holds. The few exposed portholes were sealed by metal shutters, allowing no light. Charmy turned to them as they approached. "I'm gonna take a look," he announced, and promptly flew down the shaft and disappeared from view. After a few seconds, the buzzing of his wings ceased; he had landed.

"Can you see anything?" Knuckles called.

"No, it's all dark down here," the bee replied. "There's something on the floor, though. I think- Wait a minute, what the...?" There followed a few seconds of silence, broken by, "Hey, there's somebody here!"

"What?" Tails called back, incredulous. "Alive?"

"Um..." Another pause. "I think so; it feels like he's still breathing."

"Hold on just a second, I'll help you," Tails called. He spun his tails and lowered himself through the gap, touching down on the pitch-black lower deck. The shaft was much shorter than he had anticipated – more of a hatch, really. He stepped forward and bumped into another person by accident.

"Ah! Something's got me!" "Charmy, don't yell, it's only me!" "Oh, okay. Just let me move over to..." "Wait, don't push, you'll- Whoa!" Tails stumbled and fell heavily on his left side. "Charmy, be more careful!" "Sorry." "It's fine." The kitsune raised himself onto his hands and knees and felt around for whatever had tripped him. "We'll have to carry him standing up, or we won't all fit through. I'll go first; you come after me. Where's his head?" "There." "Where?" "Right there." "I can't see you, Charmy." "Oh, right. It's next to the hollowed-out part."

Tails picked his way around Charmy and located the pilot's upper body. He gripped the upper arms and spun his tails, hauling himself and the unconscious body up toward the hatch. A buzzing told him that Charmy was airborne as well. The two made their short, awkward way back into the cabin and deposited their cargo on the deck. After a few seconds of heavy breathing, Tails rubbed his eyes and turned to look at the pilot's face.


	4. Chapter 3: The Fallen Traveler

Thanks for the reviews. Not much else to say, really.

**13May2012:** Revised and updated. A few small continuity fixes, no real difference in the story.**  
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Read & review.

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**Chapter 3 – The Fallen Traveler**

_Impact site, Angel Island vicinity – Green Hill zone, Möbius_

_6:50 AM local time_

The pilot was a slate-gray hedgehog who looked like he would have stood just a little shorter than Knuckles had he been conscious. His quills were pressed flat by a pair of mirrored flight goggles over his eyes, one knocked slightly askew by his fall. Tails lifted the iridescent lenses onto the pilot's forehead; he caught a glimpse of orange before the hedgehog's left eyelid fell shut. A strong sense of recognition stirred – though where he could possibly have seen the pilot before, he had no idea.

"Uh, Tails?" A gloved hand waved in front of the fox's face. "You still with us?"

"Hmm?" Tails answered vaguely, looking up at Knuckles. "Oh, sorry. I thought... I mean, I felt like I'd seen him before. I can't quite place it, though." He tried to remove the goggles; his hand brushed against a spot that felt out-of-place on his skull. The pilot, despite apparently being unconscious, tensed suddenly as if in pain. Tails felt for the spot again; it was indeed larger than it should have been, and unusually warm. "I think he's injured!"

"He probably fell down the hatch head-first," Knuckles reasoned. "That's where his head was lying, right?"

"He needs help, fast!" Tails replied impatiently. "Knuckles, can you get him back to the _Tornado_?"

The echidna nodded. "Which way?"

"Almost due south," Tails answered, pointing backward over his shoulder. "It's not far – right next to the Chaotix office."

"I'll meet you there," Knuckles replied simply, hefting the pilot over his shoulders and into a firefighter's carry. He stepped through the space where the door had been and jogged away, vanishing into the undergrowth with a crash of leaves. Tails followed without delay, spinning his tails into a yellow-orange blur and flying up through the forest canopy. Without the trees to restrict his movement, he flew at top speed, touching down at the edge of the forest after barely more than a minute.

Knuckles arrived just as the _Tornado_'s engine kicked into motion; under Tails' instructions, he placed the injured pilot in the gunner's cockpit and backed away from the plane. Charmy burst through a cluster of leaves and landed at the echidna's side, fluttering his wings to get rid of the excess water they had collected.

"I'm taking him to Cream and Vanilla's house," Tails called over the noise of the engine. "I'll let you know if anything comes up."

"Good luck," the echidna replied, while Charmy gave him a thumbs-up. Tails returned the gesture, then opened the throttle and lifted off. He flew in a tight helix to gain altitude quickly, then turned the _Tornado_'s nose to the west. The sun had risen about halfway past the horizon; the awakening forest steamed, summoning dense columns of warm mist that glowed with reflected light. Just a few miles away, Tails sighted a relatively large, two-story house near the base of a shallow cliff – one of the many treeless "green hills" that gave the zone its name. That was his destination.

The journey didn't take long, and within minutes he could discern the house's windows from the red-brick walls around them. Tails circled twice before he found a level stretch of ground to land on. As he brought the _Tornado_ in, he saw a face appear briefly through a window on the lower floor. The front door flew open, and a tan-and-red blur came racing down the sloped lawn toward him. Tails cut the throttle, letting the plane coast to a halt just as Cream arrived within hearing distance. The young rabbit skidded to a stop, sliding a little on the dew-soaked grass. "What's wrong, Tails?" she called over the coughs of the dying engine. The blue face of her Chao companion, Cheese, peeked over her shoulder.

Tails released his harness and climbed onto the _Tornado_'s fuselage. "I'll explain soon," he answered simply. "Someone else needs help first." He took hold of the unconscious hedgehog under the arms and hauled himself into the air. With an effort, the fox managed to get the pilot out of the plane and down to ground level.

"Who is that?" Cream asked, her face showing mixed curiosity and concern.

"I don't know," Tails replied, "but he's been through a crash-landing. Can you help me carry him?"

Understanding the gravity of the situation, the rabbit nodded. She took hold of the pilot's legs while Cheese hovered underneath his lower back, and the three bore him up the hillside toward the house. Another rabbit appeared in the open doorway as they approached.

"Cream, have I not told you-" She stopped mid-sentence. Vanilla stood nearly four feet tall and had a noticeably darker shade of brown encircling her eyes, but otherwise, Cream was her mother's spitting image. "Tails, who is that? Is something wrong?" she asked, her face showing the same worried expression her daughter had worn.

"He was in a crash," Cream answered, shifting the pilot's weight. "We don't know his name, but Tails says he's hurt. Can he stay with us for a little while?"

"Of course he can, if he's injured," Vanilla replied, stepping backward to let them into the living room. "Take him to the guest bedroom, and I'll be there in a moment." She vanished into a neighboring room, leaving Tails and Cream to navigate the stairs and the hallway beyond. It took a while, but eventually they managed to get the pilot through the last door on the left and onto the single bed. Vanilla reappeared seconds later, carrying a bright red plastic case under one arm. "What sort of injury is it?" she asked Tails, kneeling beside the bed.

"He's got a pretty nasty bruise on his forehead," he answered, pointing. "It looks like he fell down into the lower deck of his ship, about six feet. His neck seems okay, but he might be concussed."

If the mention of the word "ship" surprised her, Vanilla gave no sign of it. She removed the goggles from the pilot's head and examined the bruise. "Hmm… First of all, we need to reduce the swelling. Cream, bring me one of those cold packs from the freezer." The younger rabbit nodded and dashed out of the room. Vanilla opened the first-aid kit and extracted a roll of cloth bandage and a pair of scissors. She cut about two feet of the fabric and tied it around her patient's head, covering the bruise. The hedgehog seemed to be semi-conscious at this point, tensing in pain each time she touched the injury. Tails watched the whole procedure in silence.

Cream returned a moment later with plastic pouch of some blue, transparent gel. Tails understood at once: the gel would remain in a semi-liquid state well below the freezing point of water, keeping the swollen area cold without putting excessive pressure on the injury. Vanilla wrapped the pouch in a few layers of cloth, then carefully pressed it over the bruise. Her patient stiffened and uttered a grunt of pain, but he soon relaxed as the numbing chill took effect. Vanilla secured the makeshift compress with a second bandage.

"I'm afraid we can't do much more than that," the elder rabbit said, sounding relieved. "We'll have to wait until he wakes up to be sure he wasn't hurt too badly. Luckily, it seems you found him very soon after the... accident." In her brief hesitation, Tails recognized a characteristic tone of cautious, almost shameful uncertainty – a silent battle between curiosity and discretion.

"I'll stay with him," Tails offered, knowing Vanilla would be reluctant to ask for his help. He doubted it was the only thing troubling her, but experience had taught him that Vanilla shared her concerns when Vanilla was ready.

The elder rabbit nodded in silent gratitude, smiled warmly, and left the room. Tails pulled a chair from under an old-fashioned writing desk and sat down next to the bed, positioning himself opposite the window while keeping an eye on their patient. He watched the hedgehog's face carefully from time to time. His eyes flicked rapidly from side to side beneath closed lids, observing the unseen world of a dream – normal REM sleep, a good sign.

As the minutes passed, Tails' attention drifted; he half-watched the grass outside the window take on brighter and brighter shades of green, deep in thought. He recalled the pilot's eye color – a vivid amber, almost yellow. The eyes were the only part of the pilot that struck him as alien – hedgehogs didn't even have a _gene_ for that color, as far as he knew – but at the same time, he felt certain he had seen similar eyes before. _Where did you come from?_

After many minutes and several more occasional glances at the pilot, Tails realized his eye movements had stopped. Suddenly alert, he also noticed a difference in the hedgehog's breathing – faster and slightly irregular, unusual for sleep. "I think he's coming to!" the fox called over his shoulder.

His voice seemed to catch the pilot's attention; his ears twitched in the direction of the sound, and his brow furrowed with what looked like confusion. He cracked open one amber eye and peered at Tails with a kind of dazed curiosity. After a few seconds of staring, he abruptly winced and grunted in pain. "_Iveto_..." he groaned.

"What?" Tails asked, unsure whether the pilot had spoken or not.

The hedgehog looked at him sideways and lifted an eyebrow. "_Negotakn..._" he motioned to himself without lifting his arm from the bed, "_...nako?_"

"I don't understand you," Tails replied, now certain the words were not his language. "You were in a crash. We found your ship out in the forest and brought you here." The hedgehog said nothing, only continued to give him the same questioning look.

"Did he wake up? Is he okay?" Cream cried, materializing beside the bed to Tails' left. The pilot's quizzical gaze switched to the young rabbit, then to her mother as she appeared in the doorway as well.

"He seems fine, dear," Vanilla reassured her, noting the stranger's obvious awareness of his surroundings. "Has he said anything, Tails?"

"I think so. It didn't sound like Möbian, though, so he might not-" Tails broke off abruptly; something had bumped against his elbow twice. He turned to see the pilot flexing his left arm experimentally, now with both eyes open.

"...Crash?" he murmured. His voice sounded ragged and still held a trace of foreign accent, but the word was unmistakable. Cream exchanged a look of surprise with Tails.

"Tails brought you here because you were injured," the rabbit explained. "We don't know what happened before then."

"Would you tell us your name?" Vanilla inquired, kneeling behind the two younger caretakers.

"...Nestor," the pilot replied after what seemed like a few seconds' thought. Vanilla nodded in satisfaction. Tails understood: they needed some basic knowledge to question him later and make sure he hadn't suffered brain damage.

"Do you know who we are?" the kitsune asked.

"...No," Nestor answered, brow furrowing in puzzlement. Tails knew very well that none of them had introduced themselves yet; what mattered was whether Nestor would realize this, and how quickly.

"My name is Tails," the fox continued, opting to give his full name later. "Ms. Vanilla is standing behind us, and this is her daughter, Cream." Once again, the introduction itself wasn't as important as how much information their patient could absorb and remember.

"...Where are we?" Nestor asked after a second pause. He still hadn't moved his neck or changed positions on the bed, simply staring straight upward with the same bemused expression.

"This is where I live," Cream replied before Tails could decide how to answer. "Mother says you can stay with us a while longer if you need to."

Nestor gave no answer, instead forming unspoken words with his mouth – Möbian or his own language, Tails couldn't tell. After several seconds, he seemed to remember their conversation. "How bad?" he murmured, tilting his head slightly and wincing again. Tails suddenly understood the pilot's blank, delirious-looking upward gaze: even the smallest movement of his neck caused him significant pain.

"What do you mean?"

"The crash," Nestor elaborated. He raised a hand gingerly, as if he were testing the arm for damage. "This," he added, pointing at his own forehead.

"I think you fell down to the lower deck," Tails replied after a brief pause, avoiding the first part of the question. Nestor still needed rest, and if he was anything like a typical pilot, the condition of his ship would hardly bring comforting thoughts.

"Fell..." the hedgehog echoed, contemplating the ceiling again. He turned his hand palm-upward and moved the arm up and down repeatedly as if hefting an invisible weight, apparently transfixed by the exercise. Worried that his coherence might be slipping, Tails continued the rough mental assessment.

"Nestor," he said; the pilot tensed with pain yet again, reflexively trying to turn his head in Tails' direction. That, at least, was a good sign. "You remember me, right?"

Nestor frowned, looking nonplussed. "When?" he asked, suddenly sounding anxious.

"Tails," the fox prompted.

Nestor seemed to digest his answer for several seconds before understanding. "Right," he said, directing a finger at Tails. "And Cream, and... Vanilla," he added, pointing to each of them in turn.

Tails turned to Vanilla just in time to see her concerned expression change into relief. She met his eyes and nodded once: _He'll be alright._ Nestor still seemed dazed and unfocused – that much was to be expected – but they hadn't found signs of anything more permanent or severe than a mild concussion. Now that he was awake, what the pilot needed most was to sleep.

"Try to get some rest now," Vanilla advised him, standing back up to her full height and starting to repack the first-aid kit. "If you need anything else, Cream and I will be just downstairs." Nestor muttered something in his own language and gave a barely-visible nod. Vanilla inclined her head politely in return, then turned into the hallway and left.

"Don't worry right now," Tails added in an undertone, noticing that the pilot's slightly perplexed frown had returned. "We'll explain everything soon." Nestor seemed to relax at this. Satisfied, the kitsune got to his feet and followed Cream out of the room, leaving the slightly-less-mysterious stranger alone with his thoughts.


	5. Chapter 4: Connections

**I'm really sorry this chapter took so long. I got hit by multiple essays over the course of writing it, along with a really bad creative block. I'm happy to say that I've gotten past both (for now, anyway,) and that this story should progress at a normal pace**

**As I was writing this, I was afraid it would be bit slow, but I think I managed to get past that. This chapter contains a lot of foreshadowing about Nestor's role in the story, so keep an eye out for that. And, as always, feel free to drop a review if you have anything to say.**

* * *

Chapter 4 – Connections

_Angel Island vicinity, Mobius_

The buzz of the engine and the whistle of the wind filled Tails' ears as he cruised slowly over the landscape back toward his home. Below him, the lush forests and wide expanses of grass stretched out like some collosal patchwork quilt. A few miles away to the east, the direction in which he was traveling, it dropped off, revealing an ocean alight with the rays of a newly risen sun. Everywhere else, it continued out as far as the eye could see, disappearing into a haze of blue in the distance.

Tails flew barely faster than a glide; he was in no hurry, and he loved the feeling of freedom that being airborne gave him. The sensation of being hundreds of feet off the ground, in perfect control of your every movement and unrestricted even by gravity, was exhilarating. Grounded, Tails would be as lost as Sonic would be without his legs. Flying had been a joy for him for as long as he could remember, and in the past few months it had become a way to free himself of the painful memories that were always nagging at the back of his mind.

On a whim, Tails pulled backward on the stick, causing the _Tornado_ to launch into a vertical upward climb. The craft slowed as its momentum died, and it began to fall back toward the ground tail-first. Tails then cut the engine, reducing its noise to a dull, rhythmic throb; there was now only air under him, followed by the ground hundreds of feet below. However, physics soon came into play. Without any interference from its pilot, the plane slowly but surely began to face toward the ground. The secret to this occurrence lay in the aerodynamics of the vehicle; it was easier for it to fall nose-first than tail-first.

Tails waited until the _Tornado_ had turned halfway around, plummeting straight toward the trees below. With only about a hundred feet left before the collision, he opened the throttle to full and pulled back on the stick. The engine roared to life, and the plane curved upward, briefly skimming the treetops before shooting off into the sky once more.

"Woo-hoo!" Tails cried gleefully. The maneuver he had just performed was known among aircraft circles as a tailslide. It was considered the ultimate test of a pilot's daring, and looked pretty impressive when seen from below. It could terrify newcomers and passengers out of their wits, but an experienced pilot knew that as long as he timed his maneuvers correctly, there was very little danger. That, of course, made it no less fun to pull off. You couldn't do stuff like this in a jet.

Tails began a slow, steady, spiraling ascent around the lower half of Angel Island, the rocky face seeming to race by on his left. As he flew, his mind wandered to the events of the past hour or so. He wondered about the mysterious circumstances under which Nestor had arrived. How had the mysterious hedgehog gotten here? Why had he come? Tails' mind automatically started to try to make sense of these questions, but his efforts were continuously halted by the sheer lack of information. He hadn't seen the crash, and he knew next to nothing about what had gone on before. For all he knew, there was nothing strange at all about their visitor. Still, the memory of Knuckles' account of a hole in the sky kept intruding on his musings. Tails wasn't normally one to follow instinct over thought, but he couldn't shake the feeling that this whole situation was masking something much bigger.

After a few minutes, Tails stopped worrying himself about it; there was no point trying to figure out the how or the why when he didn't even know the what. He passed the lip of the island and flew out over the green, mountainous landscape. He piloted the plane over the island to the eastern side, flying low over his home on the edge of the cliff. Once there, Tails banked around and brought the _Tornado_ in at last for a smooth landing.

* * *

_Vanilla's house - Green Hill, Mobius_

Once everyone had departed, Nestor turned onto his side. He didn't bother trying to sleep; there were too many factors trying to prevent it. For starters, his head hurt; the sharp pain he felt whenever he touched the bruise or moved too quickly had subsided into a dull throbbing. The pain was bearable, but it was still enough to deprive him of rest. Secondly, his mind was racing with dozens of unanswered questions. Why had Marauders targeted his ship? What had gone wrong with the transfer? Where had he come out? What planet was he on? How was he going to get out of here? He couldn't seem to find any answers; it seemed that his only option was to ask someone. And that was out of the question; the ones who had found him – he couldn't bring their names to mind at the moment – would insist that he try to sleep. But he couldn't; his thoughts wouldn't let him. This brought him back to the original point; he decided to stop, since there was no reason to think through that loop more than once.

At length, Nestor decided that there was no point staying here. He sat up slowly, taking care not to aggravate the pain in his head. It took him a while, but eventually he was standing, albeit unsteadily, by the bed. He picked up the mirrored goggles on the bedside table, then continued. Keeping one hand on the wall to steady himself, he made his way around the perimeter of the room to the door. Once there, he passed through and began his slow trek down the hallway. It would have taken most people about ten seconds to reach the landing, but Nestor was forced to move at a much slower pace, using the wall for support. Occasionally the pain in his head would intensify, and he would have to lean against the wall to keep from falling. The entire journey took about two minutes.

The stairs were trickier to navigate. After a few seconds of thought, Nestor put both hands on the banister for support and took a step down. Once his right foot was securely placed, he moved the other down onto the same step. He continued this slow, tedious process for several more steps, gaining in confidence each time. Eventually, he tried to move too fast; his foot slipped down to the step below. The force from the impact shot up his leg and spine and into his head, causing a burst of pain. Nestor gave an involuntary yelp.

The sound startled someone whom he had not noticed before, sitting on the couch in the living room below. She looked around, surprised, and immediately got to her feet and ran up to help him. "Are you okay?" she asked, sounding somewhat worried. Nestor looked up; the speaker was the younger of the two rabbits that had been in his room before. What had the fox called her? He couldn't think of the name...

"I'm fine," Nestor replied. He tried to stand up, but only succeeded in triggering a second burst of pain. He stopped, waiting for it to subside, then continued at a slower pace. He eventually reached a full standing position with only one hand on the banister; he held the other arm out to his side. "See? Perfect health," he said, trying to reassure her.

The rabbit – he still couldn't remember her name – didn't look entirely convinced. "Are you sure you're alright?" she asked again.

"Yes, I'm sure," Nestor replied. To demonstrate this, he took a step with only one hand on the banister. He immediately lost his balance and would have fallen had the rabbit not grabbed his arm. He regained his balance and looked at her, embarrassed. "Okay, so I'm a little unsteady, but I think I can handle a staircase."

"Mr. Nestor, I really think you should let me help you," the rabbit persisted.

_Mr. Nestor?_ "If I must," he said with a sigh, trying not to show how relieved he was. He put his right hand on the rabbit's shoulder, and they made their way down the last few steps to the ground floor of the house. At that moment, someone else entered the room. It was the other rabbit; he couldn't think of her name either, but he knew that the one supporting him was her daughter. Now that he looked, he saw that they were nearly identical save for their height. She looked surprised to see him, and understandably so.

"Goodness, you're up already?" she said. "I didn't think you'd even be able to stand for at least another hour."

"Told you I was a quick healer," Nestor replied. "Although, I'm not really sure I _can_ stand yet..." He took his hand off the young rabbit's shoulder and stood unsupported for a few seconds. His body swayed unsteadily. He managed to take a couple of steps toward the wall; he put his hand on it to keep his balance. "I'll get straight to the point," Nestor said abruptly, all traces of fatigue gone from his voice. "I've got a lot of questions that need answering, and chances are so do you. So, since I've been an idiot and forgotten your names, let's take some time to get formally acquainted. I'm Nestor Kairos of planet Terrora."

"My name is Vanilla," the elder rabbit replied, "and this is my daughter, Cream."

At that point, Nestor did something odd. He seemed to stare upward into space, mouthing seemingly random words to himself. Vanilla caught the word "ice" among them. After a moment, he appeared to come back to the present. "Got it," he said simply. In response to Cream and Vanilla's nonplussed looks, he elaborated. "It's a little memory trick of mine. I just think of phrases with your name until I find a link to something about you – your personality, your appearance, anything. It's easy with you, since your names are actual words." **A/N: Just the first of Nestor's many eccentricities. **Cream and Vanilla continued to looks at him oddly. "Give me an awkward silence, why don't ya..." he muttered under his breath.

"So," Cream spoke up in an effort to break the silence, "how did you get here, Mr. Kairos? Tails didn't tell us much, only that he found you in a crashed ship."

Again, Nestor was unsettled by her formality. He couldn't remember the last time he had been called "Mr." anything. He set that thought aside and answered the question. "Well, it's a little complicated, so I'll save time and give you the short version. My ship came under attack from a Marauder vessel – normally not a problem, but I was outsized and outgunned – and I took some heavy fire. They wrecked the propulsion system, so I tried to use the warp function to escape. It would take a while to explain what happened; suffice it to say, my ship got hit midway through and I was knocked out. Apparently, the ship tried to do the warp on its own, so there's no telling how far off course I ended up."

"Well, that depends," Vanilla replied. "Where were you trying to go?"

"Well," Nestor began a little hesitantly, "I'm not really sure what to tell you. Neither the planet nor the system is named on any of my charts, though it does show up. I might be in the right spot, but there wasn't supposed to be a planet nearby in the time and place I was aiming for..."

"You should talk to Tails about this," Cream spoke up. "He knows more than us about spaceships and that sort of thing."

"Is he here?" Nestor asked. "Can I talk to him?"

"I think he went home," Vanilla replied. "He was being very quiet at the time; he always acts like that when he's got something on his mind. It's been happening more and more lately... No surprise, considering what's been going on..." Her voice trailed off; the last couple of sentences seemed to have been said more to herself than anyone else.

There followed a second silence, which was broken, rather unexpectedly, by a knock at the door. Cream ran to the window and peeked out, then opened the door to admit someone else that Nestor recognized. It was the blue-furred hedgehog, the one who had given his name as Sonic.

"Sonic?" Cream asked, surprised. "I didn't think you were coming yet."

"I was bored," Sonic replied casually. "I dropped by to see how our patient was doing." Nestor coughed, causing Sonic to look around. "You're up already? Wow, you really do recover fast." The hedgehog extended his hand, which Nestor shook.

"What can I say? I've had practice," the pilot replied. "An extra dimension equals extra danger." Before Sonic could do more than puzzle over that enigmatic statement, Nestor continued. "I think we lack a formal introduction. Nestor Kairos," he said.

"Sonic," the hedgehog replied. "Just Sonic." He frowned as something stirred in his memory. "Hey, you don't know anybody... nah, it must be a coincidence, never mind. That reminds me, though," he added, switching topics yet again, "Tails said he had some things to ask you once you were in better shape."

"That's the second time someone's said I should talk to him," Nestor commented. "Well, I'm in okay shape now, so, no time like the present."

"You got that right," Sonic agreed. "I'll go tell him you're up." With that, Sonic ran out through the still-open front door, creating a motion blur as he went. Nestor stared.

"Was he _running_?" Nestor asked incredulously.

Vanilla nodded. "He's famous for it. There's only been one person who could match Sonic on foot, and we're not even sure if he's alive anymore. Certainly none of us have seen him in at least six months."

"So, tell me more about this Tails person," Nestor said. "He's the one who was asking me all those questions, right?"

Vanilla nodded again. "He's really easy to get along with, you'll like him. He may be young, but don't let that affect your opinion of him. Unfortunately, he hasn't really been himself lately. Not since..." she trailed off again.

"Since what?" Nestor asked, intrigued.

The rabbit considered him for a moment before answering. "I believe that's his story to tell, not mine," she replied at last. "It was a life-changing experience for him – for all of us, really, but for Tails more than anyone – and I'm not sure he'd appreciate it if I were to let you in on the details."

"I get it," Nestor said. "His to know, his to share, right? If that's his choice, I'll respect it." He fell silent, and the two rabbits left to pursue whatever they had been doing before he came down. Nestor wondered about the possible meaning of what Vanilla had said. What could change someone so much that others would refuse to talk about it?

His musings were interrupted after several minutes by the buzz of an engine outside. He made his way to the window and watched as a blue aircraft flew by outside. He had never seen a vehicle with quite this design before; it looked awkwardly blunt-nosed for something designed for flight, and the only visible propulsion device was pointing straight ahead. How it was generating lift or turning, Nestor had no idea. Despite these apparent design flaws, the craft seemed to handle very well; he resolved to take a look at it later.

The craft banked around, dropping altitude as it went, and came in for landing with its engine still pulling it forward. Nestor, who had never seen a craft land this way before, watched with fascination as the pilot touched down smoothly and let the craft slowly come to a stop. The noise of the engine died, the propeller slowed its rotation, and a yellow figure appeared from somewhere within the fuselage. The pilot, whom Nestor could only assume was Tails, hopped down from the top of the small craft. Cream appeared at Nestor's side, looking out the window as well. Seeing who had arrived, she let Tails in as he raised a hand to knock. The fox entered, and Nestor's eyes were immediately drawn to the fact that he had an extra tail. _A kitsune,_ he thought with wonder. _That makes only six in the known universe. And some of those might not even exist yet._ He stopped his train of thought; Tails was speaking.

* * *

Tails greeted Cream and Vanilla as he entered. "I'm glad you could come by on such short notice," the latter said.

"It wasn't a problem," he replied good-naturedly. "I'm glad for something to do, to tell the truth."

"Where's Sonic?" Cream asked, looking behind Tails.

"He went to get the others," the fox answered. "He should be here..." At that moment, Sonic appeared at Tails' side, skidding slightly. "...right now," the kitsune finished.

"I've told Amy and Knuckles to come by," the hedgehog informed them, not at all winded from his run. "They're on the way now."

"Okay. Now, you said Nestor wanted to talk to me?" Tails glanced around and spotted the gray hedgehog standing over beside the stairs. He had one hand on the wall for support and was still wearing the compress, but aside from that he looked to be in perfect health. There was no trace of weariness in his bearing or his expression.

When Nestor saw Tails looking at him, he extended his hand. "Captain Nestor Kairos of starship _Hephaestus_," the hedgehog said. Tails shook his hand, startled by this form of introduction. It was often used between seamen and starship captains, but Tails hadn't expected to hear it from their patient. Although, he realized, he shouldn't be surprised, considering where they had found Nestor. However, something about the name seemed to stick in his mind; once again he was visited by a sense of familiarity.

"Kairos..." Tails said thoughtfully. "I think I've heard that name before."

"I wouldn't be surprised," Nestor replied. "A few of my relatives have been well-known people. Now... your name's Tails, right?"

"Miles Prower officially, but Tails is fine too," the kitsune answered. Nestor's reaction was immediate and very dramatic. His eyes went wide, and he suddenly looked at Tails very differently.

"You're not... _the_ Miles Prower, are you?" he asked with awe in his voice. "Not... _Captain_ Prower of the _Blue Typhoon_... are you?"

"Yeah..." Tails replied a little hesitantly. "Why the sudden shock? Do you know me?"

"How should I put this?" Nestor said in mock hesitancy. "You're practically a legend to my people. You and your crew saved the lives of every living being on my home planet. I never, _never_ thought I'd have the chance to meet you in person!"

At that moment, comprehension dawned on Cream's face. "Terrora," she said. "You remember, don't you, Tails? That time we got into a battle with a Metarex fleet and almost got swallowed by a black hole?"

Tails understood as well at that point. How could he forget? They had found one of the _Typhoon_'s own escape pods adrift in space; inside had been none other than Tails himself. He would probably never forget the feeling of watching himself utter his last words in barely more than a whisper. Only hours later, they had become involved in a full-blown fleet battle between a Metarex carrier group and an armada from nearby planet Terrora. The fight culminated with the use of an experimental weapon designed to simulate conditions around a black hole. Only a last-ditch shot from the _Typhoon_ had prevented the Metarex from escaping with the Terrorans' Planet Egg. They had barely managed to escape from that with their lives, thanks in part to the warning from what was presumably Tails from a different timeline.

At that moment, it clicked. "Admiral Kairos of the fourth fleet of Terrora, and captain of starship _Sargasso_," Tails muttered to himself.

Nestor overheard. "That's the one," he replied. "He was admiral at the time, and soon after was made general of the entire armada." Nestor sighed, as if he were reliving old memories. "Whenever someone offered congratulations, he always said, 'Without the _Typhoon_, we'd never have gotten within a mile of their flagship.'"

"We're really that famous?" Tails asked, still trying to take it all in.

"Are you kidding!?" Nestor replied incredulously. "You're in all the history books, there's probably not a single person on the planet who hasn't heard of you, there are _monuments_ erected in your honor... Yes, I'd say you are that famous."

Tails stared at the floor, shaking his head. "All that time, I though we were just doing it for the greater good, and that no one would even know who we were. I never imagined..."

"That someone would remember the people who saved them from extinction?" Nestor finished. "We Terrorans don't forget that easily."

Just then, Tails heard a quiet sniff beside him; he turned to see that Cream had gone teary-eyed. "What's wrong?" Tails asked.

"Nothing, really," she replied. "It's just... I never really understood why Cosmo did what she did. Now, when I think about all the people we helped by fighting the Metarex, I think I know what she must have been thinking... when..." She didn't continue; she didn't need to.

"You're probably right," Tails replied, also looking at the floor.

* * *

Nestor watched this exchange with interest. He deduced that they were discussing the same thing Vanilla had told him not to mention. He wanted to ask what had occurred, but he remembered what the rabbit had told him and held his tongue.

After a moment, Tails perked up. "So, back to business. If you have anywhere near as many questions as I do, this could take a while, so we'd better get started now." The fox looked him expectantly.

After a few seconds, Nestor spoke. "Where do I start..." he began, thinking. "Well, first of all, I need to figure out where I am. What do you call this planet?"

"It varies a bit between regions," Tails answered, "but most people call it Mobius. It started a little over a year ago. It's a pretty long story; basically, a few of us got transported to a world that turned out to be this one's dimensional counterpart – two apparent worlds that are really one and the same. Someone on the other planet compared that to a geometric shape called a Mobius Strip, and the name stuck. So, for all intents and purposes, this is planet Mobius."

"Alright, Mobius. I can remember that," Nestor replied. "What year is it? No, wait, never mind, you have a different calendar here. I'll have to check my ship's computer. That reminds me, though; where is my ship?"

"Um..." Tails began hesitantly, "I don't think checking the computer will work. The ship's a few miles east of here, and, well..." He paused again. "It's in pretty bad shape."

"How bad?" Nestor asked. This was starting to sound ominous.

"Worse than you were when we found you, to put it one way," said a voice unexpectedly from behind Tails. As one, everyone in the room turned to see a crimson echidna standing in the still-open doorway. He stepped in and extended his hand. Nestor shook it, eying the two-inch-long spikes on his gloves. Introductions were made, explanations were given, and the discussion resumed. "We found your ship about an hour ago out near Angel Island," Knuckles explained. "It looked pretty badly damaged, and unfortunately we had to ding it up a bit more to get you out."

"We couldn't find another way in," Tails added apologetically. "Though I doubt it made much difference, considering."

Nestor nodded in agreement. "It must've been a heck of a crash at the speed I was moving. I'm probably lucky to be alive."

"That you are," Tails agreed, laughing slightly.

* * *

**Here, I'd like to ask for a little information. I'd like to get an idea of what kind of language is allowed in T-rated fics from someone with a bit of experience on this site. Not that it applies to this story in particular; I'd just like to know for future reference.**


	6. Chapter 5: Machina

**Again, I apologize for how long this chapter took to write. I'm afraid it's going to become a normal occurrence; school is severely limiting my free time and sapping my creativity. Now that this chapter _is_ here, I'd like to hear your opinions on it. Let me know if I did something wrong so I can fix it next time.**

Chapter 5 - Machina

_Vanilla's house - Green Hill, Mobius_

It didn't take Tails long to get back to business. Before Nestor knew it, the kitsune was asking how he had gotten here. The pilot reiterated what he had told Cream and Vanilla. Tails listened intently up until the part about the warp; at this point, he interrupted Nestor's tale, looking somewhat perplexed. "What do you mean, 'tried to do the warp without you?' Can it not do that on its own?"

"It would take a while to explain," Nestor replied. "Because of the way it works, it depends on partial manual control. It technically can warp on its own, but is severely limited in terms of where and when it can travel."

"_When_ it can travel?"

Nestor hesitated; he had said too much. He recovered himself quickly. "Like I said, it would take a while to explain, and there are more important things to deal with now."

The kitsune looked as if he were considering pursuing the issue, but appeared to think better of it. "Well, since you got here by accident," he began finally, "I don't think we need to waste any more time on unimportant questions about your intentions. I assume you want to check on your ship's condition since you've asked about it twice now."

"As soon as possible," Nestor replied. Tails nodded and left through the front door. "I'll see you guys later, I guess," Nestor said a little awkwardly to the remaining people in the room before following the kitsune. As he walked – still slowly, but now without support – he felt the bruise on his head again. It must have been healing quickly; there was now almost no pain unless he pressed directly on it. He removed the compress and the strip holding it on, leaving him with just the original bandage. Nestor watched as Tails effortlessly made his way into the pilot's seat of the strange craft, noting the word _Tornado_ stenciled on the side of the fuselage. He tried to get in the same way, but had trouble getting any higher than the bottom wing.

"Need some help?" Tails asked.

"Nah, I'm alright," Nestor replied, partly out of pride and partly because it was true. He took hold of the wing above his head and pulled himself up, swinging his body into the backseat. Once the hedgehog was belted in securely,Tails revved up the vehicle. Nestor was surprised by the buzz that the motor made; it sounded like an old-fashioned combustion engine. His people hadn't used them for over a century, and he had always thought they were too heavy for flying vehicles. A single propeller (he recognized that, at least) on the craft's nose started spinning, picking up speed until it became a disc of motion blur. The craft started to move forward as the sound of the engine gradually increased in pitch.

* * *

Tails ran through the preflight checklist in his head, making sure that everything was working as it should be, then pushed the throttle enough to start the _Tornado_ moving forward. He glanced backward to see Nestor apparently looking for something on the sides of the plane. He ignored him for now, and instead focused on keeping their course straight as they accelerated. He felt the plane starting to gain lift, moving farther each time it bounced. When he was sure they had enough speed and when the wind was calm, Tails pulled back on the stick. The _Tornado_ lifted off, gaining altitude quickly.

"Whoa!" Nestor shouted, apparently surprised by the sudden takeoff. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" Tails asked as he steering the plane in a gentle spiral to gain altitude.

"That!" Nestor replied vaguely. "How did you lift off like that?"

"It's not too hard, really," the kitsune explained. "You just build up enough speed on the ground to generate sufficient lift, then nose up. It can be a little tricky to keep the plane moving straight during takeoff, but that was nice smooth ground, so..."

"But how is this thing generating lift?" the hedgehog interrupted, once again looking over the sides of the open cockpit. "I didn't see a propeller or a booster on the bottom, and somehow I doubt this thing has magnetic liftoff."

"It's just basic airfoil physics, that's all," Tails told him. When he heard no response, he looked around for the first time to see Nestor looking blank. "Are you saying you don't know what an airfoil is?" he asked. He started laughing; this guy was a pilot, and he had no idea how a wing worked.

"Hey, what's so funny?" Nestor demanded, looking offended. "I'd like to see you pilot the _Hephaestus_ without help!"

"I'm sorry," Tails replied, still chuckling, as he leveled off at cruising altitude. "It's just that, it's such a basic thing among pilots here..." He spent the next few minutes explaining the physics of an aircraft wing and giving Nestor basic information on controlling vertical and horizontal steering.

"What about axial rotation?" the hedgehog asked.

"You mean roll? That's easy, you just offset the angle of the flaps by a few degrees depending on how fast you want to spin." Tails demonstrated, sending the _Tornado_ into a high-speed, counterclockwise barrel roll maneuver. **[A/N: Peppy would be proud.]** After three complete spins, he leveled off and resumed normal flight.

"Like that," he concluded. He glanced back to see Nestor bug-eyed and frozen in place. "You alright, Nestor?"

"I've never spun that fast in my life," he replied softly. "I thought I was about to fall out of the cockpit." He recovered and assumed a more relaxed demeanor. "That was pretty impressive," he commented. "How did you get it to spin so fast?"

"It's not that hard in this type of plane," Tails answered. "Having two pairs of wings gives you twice the surface area for lift, so you don't have to make the wingspan as large. The extra drag cuts down a lot on speed, but I've yet to see the aircraft that could maneuver as well as a biplane. Well, triplanes, of course, but they're basically the same concept, not to mention too slow to be practical..."

Nestor's mind started to wander as Tails began a monologue about various types of aircraft, most of which he had never heard of. Idly, he looked around at the predominantly green landscape below them, and spotted Angel Island for the first time. He was awed by the sight; Cream had told him it was a floating island, but that didn't even come close to seeing it with his own eyes. It was gargantuan, probably more than half a mile across, and nearly as tall from lower tip to summit. The entire mass of rock and soil was suspended over a thousand feet in the air. Nestor couldn't fathom what force could possibly hold something so massive in the air. "Whoa," was all he could manage.

"Hmm?" Tails broke off his one-sided discussion of Sopwith Camels and turned to look at his passenger. "Oh, that's Angel Island," he explained when he realized what had caused Nestor to become entranced. "Yeah, it can have that affect on people. It still does that to me sometimes."

"What holds it up?" Nestor asked, still staring.

"It would take a while to explain," the kitsune replied; Nestor caught the reference and glared for a second. "I'll tell you later," Tails continued. "We're almost there."

Nestor looked below them; sure enough, not far away in the woods was a relatively small but still noticeable gap in the canopy. He assumed that was where he had crashed. He stayed quiet as Tails guided the plane down for a landing in a nearby field. As they descended, he noticed someone waving to them from the ground. Nestor wordlessly pointed the person out to Tails, who nodded and altered course to land near them.

* * *

_Angel Island vicinity, Mobius_

Sonic sometimes moved too fast for his own good. He didn't always have the patience to stop and listen when someone needed to tell him something; one of these days, it was going to get him into trouble. So thought Amy Rose as she made her way across what seemed like the seventh field she had walked through today. Sonic had arrived at her front door with what was probably important news; he hadn't been very clear on the details. The hedgehog had said something about a crashed ship, and mentioned that someone called Nestor was at Vanilla and Cream's house. Before Amy had time to ask what was going on, Sonic had bolted off again. With nothing else to do, Amy had started off after him, hoping to reach her destination before she missed anything.

Now, she was starting to regret her haste. She had run part of the way, and she was exhausted. She was just about to stop and take a rest when she heard the drone of an engine. She looked up, shielding her eyes against the sun, and spotted the _Tornado_ cruising above her. "Tails!" she called. There was no response; she called again, waving her arms to get the pilot's attention. "Hey, Tails! Down here!"

That seemed to work better; after a moment the plane banked around and started to head in her direction, dropping in altitude as it went. She watched Tails land and ran over to the plane as it came to a stop. "It's about time someone came along," she told the kitsune. "I thought I was going to have to walk for another half hour by myself."

"Good morning to you too, Amy," Tails replied as he shut off the engine. He clambered out of the recessed cockpit and dropped the five or so feet to the ground, landing lightly and straightening. Behind him, someone Amy didn't recognize was exiting the back seat more carefully, looking for a handhold to use to climb down. "This is the new arrival," Tails informed her, also looking. "His name is Nestor Kairos; he hails from planet Terrora. Nestor, meet Amy Rose."

"Terrora..." Amy said thoughtfully. "Wasn't that the planet that we...?"

"It was."

"And wasn't Kairos the name of...?"

"Yes."

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

"Sorry."

While they were speaking, Nestor managed to get down onto the wing of the _Tornado_ and from there to the ground. "Hi," he said simply to Amy. "I'd introduce myself, but Tails here did it for me, so I'd just be wasting my breath. Although I probably wasted more by saying that..." he added as an afterthought.

Amy simply raised an eyebrow at this. _He seems nice enough, I guess..._ she thought. "Well, Tails introduced me, too, so no need to do that," she said out loud. No one spoke for a few seconds. **[A/N: Been happening a lot, hasn't it?]**

Once again, they were saved from a long silence by Sonic's unexpected arrival. "Hi, guys," he said. "I followed the _Tornado_ for a while, but I lost sight of you through the trees. It took me a while to figure out where you landed."

"What happened to the others?" Tails asked.

"Cream and Vanilla are back at their house," the hedgehog replied. "Knuckles said he knew where you guys were going and that he'd meet us there."

"Well, let's not keep him waiting," Nestor declared. He started walking, and stopped after about five steps. "How 'bout I let you go first, eh, kid?" he said to Tails. "You probably know where I crashed better than I do. I guess there is a chance I'd find it on my own," he added, somewhat thoughtfully, "but I'd rather not try to work out the odds of that."

_What a weirdo, _Amy thought, falling into step beside Tails as the party headed off in the right direction. Apparently her thoughts showed on her face, because the kitsune replied as if she had spoken out loud.

"He is a bit eccentric, isn't he?" Tails said in a low voice.

"I guess that's one way of putting it," she said, making no effort to hide her thoughts.

"Hey, don't be too hard on him," Tails replied, chuckling. "We've all got our strong points, our weaknesses, and our quirks. Some people just happen to have more than others."

"I still say he's a little off-center up here," she said, tapping the side of her head.

* * *

Nestor overheard their conversation and decided not to comment. Instead, he simply kept walking, giving no sign that he heard anything. He chuckled softly at Amy's comment. _You have no idea._

The walk to the crash site was a short one, though the lack of conversation made it seem longer. From the silence that hung about the group, an outsider might wonder who had died. Nestor found himself actually dreading the state his ship might be in. Although, he reasoned, it couldn't be completely destroyed, or his rescuers wouldn't have had to cause more damage get him out. This did little to assuage his worry, and he kept silent.

The first sign Nestor saw was the pit. A deep, wide gash had been carved into the earth, so deep that it revealed the red clay below. As the party passed the last of the vegetation, he spotted the ship itself. I was barely recognizable: half of the craft was buried beneath a five-foot-high mound of earth, and what parts were visible bore heavy scarring. The door was entirely gone, lying a few feet away with a dent in the outside. The surface of the fuselage was honeycombed with large holes and carbon stains; entire sections of the plating had been blasted away in places. At least one of the stabilizers had been torn off and was lying in the trench, bent almost halfway around.

At length, Nestor became aware that Tails was speaking to him. "Nestor? Hey, Nestor! Are you okay?"

"Hmm? What?" Nestor said, returning to the present. "Oh, I'm fine." He turned back to the ship. "She certainly isn't, though. It looks like I'll be here for a while." He sighed. "I don't know how I'm going to repair this kind of damage. I'm stuck on this planet – no offense meant, by the way – with no materials, and I doubt anyone would pick up a homing beacon from out here..."

He looked at Tails, who seemed to be considering something. "Well," the kitsune began hesitantly, "I could probably repair this well enough to get it into space... assuming you trust me with it, of course."

"Her," Nestor corrected instinctively, before realizing what he had just been offered. "Wait, you're saying you'll patch her up for me?" The kitsune nodded. "But I don't have much of anything to trade, and I doubt Alliance credits would be worth anything out here..."

"Don't worry about it," Tails replied, smiling. "It's on me."

"Wait, so you'll fix her up, provide all the materials, and get her ready for space flight... all free of charge?" He was having trouble believing it; there was always some kind of catch.

"I think what you're forgetting," said a voice from Nestor's left, "is that Tails here practically lives for machines. He's been having withdrawal lately because he's run out of stuff to repair. He'd probably _pay_ you to let him fix it if you made him." It was Knuckles, who had once again managed to approach without anyone's notice.

"_Her,_" he corrected again. "Don't worry, this is a good enough deal as is. I'll owe you one after this is over."

"I told you, don't worry about it," Tails replied, laughing. "Knuckles is right; it's been a while since I had a challenging project to work on." With the agreement made, the kitsune immediately got down to business. "All right, I'll need to head by the hangar and get the _X-Tornado_ so I can airlift it – her – out of here. You guys can stay here while I do that."

"Sounds like a plan," Nestor replied. He wanted to look over his ship and make sure nothing too important had been damaged. He stepped over to the side of the craft, examining the extensive damage to the outer shell. It looked bad, but none of the scores were more than a few inches deep. The damage to the aft quarter would be more difficult to repair; the propulsion system was completely gone, the rear of the ship torn open by the force of a massive explosion.

Nestor took only a few seconds to survey the exterior before moving inside. The interior of the cabin was dark; the only available light came from the door and the partially buried canopy. He ignored details, making straight for the shaft to the left of the pilot's seat. He glanced down into the darkness below before carefully stepping off of the edge. Nestor dropped the five or so feet to the floor, then straightened and looked into the almost perfect blackness below deck. "Dang."

"You alright down there?" said a voice from the top of the shaft; evidently, Knuckles had followed him inside.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Nestor replied, still looking around blindly. "Can't see, that's all." He ran his hand along the wall, feeling for the flashlight he kept there, though he realized it could easily have fallen off. Knuckles dropped down just as he located it; he flipped it on and shone the beam around the room.

* * *

Knuckles stared around at his bizarre surroundings as the room came into view. They were standing in a small hallway, just high enough to stand in and wide enough to turn around easily. Along both walls, the ceiling, and even the floor were small metal panels, each about eight inches across and placed at intervals of about one foot. Each was labeled with an unfamiliar triangular symbol. "What are these?" he asked, nonplussed.

Nestor seemed to ignore his question; the hedgehog immediately started along the hallway, briefly scanning the walls with his eyes. The hall only went for about fifteen feet, but midway along it a second branched off and headed toward the back of the ship. Nestor doubled back and surveyed this one next, stopping after about five feet. On either side of him were two larger panels about a foot off the ground, about a foot and a half square, and with handles on them. Nestor slid one of these up, revealing a crawlspace lined with yet more numbered panels. He swept the flashlight beam over these as well, revealing an earth-covered porthole at the end, before shutting the lid again. He did the same for the opposite crawlspace and the four other pairs along the hall, before finally reaching the end of the corridor. There, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Okay, what the heck was all that?" Knuckles asked him, slightly annoyed at having his earlier question ignored.

"I needed to make sure nothing down here was damaged," Nestor replied. "This stuff is really important, not to mention way harder to repair than anything on the main deck."

"What is it, though?" Knuckles persisted, still confused.

"This, my friend," the pilot answered, gesturing around at the walls, "is _deus ex machina_ – the god of the machine. This little beauty is the solution to a problem that has consumed countless lifetimes of work." As he spoke, his tone of voice changed, becoming almost reverent.

"But... what is it?" the echidna repeated. Nestor chuckled.

"I'll explain it once your friend gets her repaired," he replied. "It wouldn't mean much without an explanation, and if I tried to explain now, you'd laugh in my face. They always do." Without offering any further clarification, Nestor turned and began to make his way back to the shaft.

_What in the world is he on about?_ Knuckles wondered, starting to follow the gray-toned hedgehog out.

* * *

**My main goals in this chapter were to further develop Nestor's character and to drop some hints about just what's really going on here. R&R as always.**


	7. Chapter 6: Second Impressions

**Alright, I trust you have all noticed that, aside from the prologue, this story has been devoid of any kind of action. Unfortunately, this chapter is the same way. _But_, before I lose any readers to lack of interest, allow me a chance to explain myself. I can't give all the details yet, but I feel that a lot of this is necessary to avoid issues of _deus ex machina_ later on. That is, I want everything that happens to relate to what has happened before. If you're bored, please try to bear with me; this story _will_ get more interesting in the next few chapters.**

**Now that that's out of the way, here's the chapter itself.**

Chapter 6 – Second Impressions **[A/N: You know, like, instead of first... never mind.]**

_Impact site - Angel Island vicinity, Mobius_

Nestor stepped out of the ship and back into the clearing, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the brightness. As he did so, he heard a roar from above; he looked up in time to see something large and gold shoot by overhead. The object's speed made it hard to see details, but he could tell from the shape that it was a jet. The vehicle disappeared from view, but the noise remained. Seconds later, the plane appeared again, moving more slowly over the canopy. All at once, the roar became almost deafening as the vehicle dropped straight through the branches. Two large engines near the back reversed direction and swung downward, slowing the craft's descent. With a lightness and grace that belied its size, the two-ton hulk of metal touched down on the forest floor, the exhaust from the jets sending up a cloud of dust that obscured the landing.

As the noise of the engines died, the air cleared gradually and Nestor felt it safe to look up. He did so, and was met with the sight of the newly landed jet. The vehicle, though not terribly large, was still enough to impress the pilot. It was three or four times the size of the _Tornado_ and seemed to fill the forest understory with its bulk. The fuselage was that of a typical jet and had four wings extending from it in an X shape. Two large jet-turbine engines, which would normally have been facing backward, had been aimed at the ground and converted into makeshift landing gear. The plane was colored a metallic burnished gold with hints of green and orange at the edges. As more of the dust settled, Nestor was able to discern writing on the side of the fuselage: painted on in dark green letters were the words _Tornado X_. As if for dramatic effect, a pillar of light shone down through the hole that the jet had just created, lending the scene a sort of theatrical grandeur.

The tinted canopy of the jet slid back, revealing Tails sitting inside the cockpit. "I should be able to airlift your ship out of here," the kitsune called to Nestor. "Just give me a minute and I'll have her tied up and ready for transport."

"Careful with the cables, eh?" Nestor called back. "Wouldn't want to scratch the paint."

Tails chuckled at the joke and shut the canopy. The jet made its slow, cumbersome way over to the half-wrecked gunship, using the two engines as legs. Nestor watched with fascination.

"It's cool, isn't it?" said someone to Nestor's right. He looked around to see Sonic watching him, and nodded. "You know he built that thing in less than a day?" the hedgehog said. Nestor stared in shock and amazement.

"Seriously? You mean he put an entire vehicle together that fast?"

"No," Sonic replied. "I mean he drew up the design, made the parts, and assembled the plane, all in less than twelve hours."

Nestor looked at him blankly. "You can't seriously expect me to believe..."

"That someone his age is capable of that?" Nestor hesitated, then nodded. "Believe it. Tails is nothing short of a genius when it comes to machines. He's designed and built stuff in a few days that other people would spend lifetimes working on. I don't know who else can claim that."

"Well, I don't know about a few days..." Nestor began.

"What?"

"Never mind."

At that point, Tails called from over by the crash site. "I've got her tethered up and ready for flight. Nestor, would you mind coming with me? I need to talk to you about some things."

"Sure, no problem," Nestor replied. He ran over and climbed up the left leg of the machine using a set of handholds that had been installed. He quickly reached the top and strapped into the second seat. The canopy sealed shut over his head, and the X-Tornado lifted off once more.

Tails guided the craft carefully into the air, making sure not to move too quickly. He hovered up through the opening he had made before; as he did, he felt a small jerk as the gunship was lifted off the ground by the net of cables he had constructed. The jet rose into the clear airspace over the forest and, with agonizing slowness, reoriented its jets to face backward. Tail had to be extremely careful during this part lest he accelerate too quickly and dislodge his cargo. Eventually, he got the jet up to flight speed and began to climb in altitude. He reached cruising level and made sure the plane was on a straight course, then turned around in his seat to face his passenger.

"There's something I've been wanting to ask you about," he told Nestor. "What's deal with your ship?"

"Other than having crashed here?" the hedgehog replied. "Not that I can think of. Why do you ask?"

"I'll be straight with you," the kitsune said. "I heard the crash and Knuckles saw it; we both know you didn't come in the normal way. Knuckles mentioned a hole in space, which sounds like some kind of teleporter to me. Add to that, you've let slip some pretty strange things since you woke up. Once or twice is a coincidence, but three times makes me think you're hiding something. Finally, there's no way a tiny little gunship like that is equipped for interstellar travel, which raises the question of how you made it here. I'm curious." The fox fell silent, waiting for Nestor to reply.

_Man, this kid really is smart,_ the hedgehog thought. "It would take me a while to explain..." Nestor began; the unintended repetition earned him a raised eyebrow from Tails. "Even if I did take the time to run through all of it," he continued, ignoring the look, "I doubt you'd believe me without proof."

"Try me," the kitsune challenged. Nestor thought for a moment.

"Sorry, I don't reveal the secrets of my trade except to potential customers. If the word got out too much, I might have people after me. I hate to break it to you, kid, but that's my policy."

Tails turned back to face the front, apparently thinking. After a few seconds, he spoke again. "I guess I'd better hurry and get this thing repaired, then, eh?"

"She," Nestor said for the third time.

"That reminds me," Tails commented, "why do you call your ship 'she'? I'm no expert, but wasn't Hephaestus a god, not a goddess?"

"What do you-- ?" Nestor began, confused, before realizing what Tails was talking about. "Oh, you thought I meant-- no, this isn't the _Hephaestus_. The ship you're carrying is the _Dione_." **[A/N: Greek ****mythology is going to be common in things that Nestor has named. Fitting, since his name is also Greek.]**

"Dione..." Tails said thoughtfully. "Seems like an overstatement for a little gunship like that," he commented, laughing. Nestor did so as well, somewhat sarcastically.

"She may not look like much," the hedgehog replied, "but that little gunship has more new technology packed into her than ten starships. As far as I know, _Dione_ is unique throughout the galaxy."

"That's if we can get her up and running again," Tails pointed out. "Some vital part of her might be beyond repair."

"I'm not worried," Nestor replied. "Even if I do end up stuck here, it's not like I wouldn't enjoy myself. Might be a nice break from my job."

Tails raised an eyebrow again, then turned around to face the front. "We're here," he said simply as his home came into view around the edge of the island. As the jet approached, Tails gradually decreased in speed, moving the jets slowly forward into landing position. He maneuvered above the short runway and went from flying to hovering, slowly setting his cargo down on the metal surface. Still tethered to the gunship, the jet slowly made its own landing on the end of the protruding runway. Tails opened the canopy and climbed out.

"Be careful getting out," the kitsune called over the sound of the dieing engines. Nestor nodded and followed him. When he reached the bottom, he felt a sudden curiosity; he carefully made his way to the edge and looked over. He saw the ground hundreds of feet below him, the tops of the trees so far away that they were tinted with blue. The sight made him dizzy, and he quickly backed away from the edge.

"It'll probably take me a while to finish fixing this," Tails was saying, "so you should find a place to stay. I've got room here if you..."

"No way," Nestor cut him off. "You're doing more than enough for me as is, I couldn't ask that of you."

"No, seriously, it's not a problem; I could use some company. Besides, I'm known for staying up all night working on projects, and I don't want to have to call you at someone else's house if I need to know something."

"I swear, someday I'm gonna pay you back for all of this," Nestor assured the fox. In his mind, he was already thinking of how to do it. _After all,_ he reasoned, _everybody wants something. All you've gotta do is figure out what that is._

_

* * *

_

Tails laughed at the hedgehog's determination. "I already told you, you don't owe me anything." He turned toward the entrance into the garage and started walking. "Come on, I'll give you the tour." He led Nestor into the garage, through the door into his smaller workshop, and up the stairs into the house proper. "You can stay here," Tails said, showing him the small guest bedroom. "It's not much, but it's home."

"Did I mention how grateful I am for all of this?" Nestor asked.

"Many times," Tails replied. "Many times."

A few minutes later, Tails had finished the tour. "Go ahead, make yourself at home," he told Nestor. "I'd better get started on the _Dione_." He descended the stairs to the garage and started to look over the ship. He could immediately tell that this was going to be a difficult job. The rear of the craft had been torn open; it would have to be resealed and the engine rebuilt or replaced. He would have to fix the dents on the outside and any components that had been damaged at the impact points. There were also several burned and damaged portions on the outside, to say nothing of the destroyed consoles within the cabin. On top of all that, the entire craft would probably have to be repainted. Needless to say, Tails had a busy time ahead of him. _My favorite kind of project,_ he thought with a grin. The kitsune wasted no time; he retrieved his well-used toolset and got to work.

* * *

_Tails' house - Angel Island, Mobius_

Nestor simply stood in the kitchen area for a minute, trying to think of some way to relieve his boredom. He soon remembered that he had not gotten more than a few hours of sleep since several hours before the wreck; the very realization made his eyes itch. Without hesitation, he made his way to the guest bedroom, fell into the bed, and was asleep in moments.

He woke several hours later, feeling refreshed. Looking out the window, he saw that the sun was starting to lower; he deduced that it was mid-afternoon. A device with an electronic display on the bedside table read 3:37, though he knew not what that meant. It was at that point that he heard what sounded like a cascade of objects from downstairs, followed by an exclamation of mild annoyance. Seeing as he had nothing else to occupy himself with, Nestor decided to see how Tails was doing.

When Nestor reached the garage, his first impression was that his ship had been gutted. Components of all shapes and sizes were strewn across the floor; part of the plating along the gunship's belly had been removed. The craft was held upright by a jack positioned under one of the stabilizers. Tails was nowhere to be seen.

"Anyone here?" Nestor called.

Immediately, there was a response from somewhere within the ship. "What-- OW!" came the voice, and Tails emerged from the hole in the craft's underside, his yellow fur covered with black grease marks. "Oh, hi Nestor," he said, wincing and rubbing his head.

"Um..." Nestor surveyed the miniature disaster area around him for a moment. "Do I want to know?"

"Oh, uh, sorry about that," Tails replied, following his gaze. "There was an area I couldn't get to through the back, so I had to take all this out and crawl in from the other direction." He looked at the scattered parts thoughtfully. "To be honest, I'm not surprised she took so much damage in the crash; half the parts weren't even bolted on, just held in place by the ones around them. Is it all right if I make some modifications?" he asked innocently.

"Sure, go ahead," Nestor replied, a little resentful at having his ship's flaws pointed out by a nine-year-old.

"Awesome!" Tails replied enthusiastically, already crawling back into the machine's innards. His voice echoed slightly on his next words: "By the time I'm done with her, _Dione_'ll be a whole new ship!"

"Just don't do too much to her," Nestor replied. "Too many additions and I'll have to upgrade the DEM!" He laughed at his own joke before realizing that he had slipped again. "Um, never mind," he amended himself. "Bad joke."

"What's the DEM?" Tails asked from inside the ship.

"Don't worry about it," Nestor asserted. "I already checked over it for damage; you won't have to do any repairs on it."

"Okay..." Tails replied; he still sounded curious. "Since you're down here, would you mind giving me a hand? This part's out of place, and I think it's jammed between these two pipes..."

"Oh, sure," Nestor said, glad that he wasn't pursuing the issue. He crawled in to give the kitsune a hand.

* * *

_Jungle - Angel Island, Mobius  
_

Something shot through the dense, jungle-like growth, leaving a trail of cleared debris behind it. The object – or rather, the person – was moving at what others would have considered blistering speed, but to the runner it was little more than a jog. He couldn't move much faster here, anyway; the close confines of the forest wouldn't allow it. Therefore, Sonic kept up a (relatively) slow and steady pace as he navigated the irregular ground and steep slopes of Angel Island. He broke through the trees and skidded to a halt at the edge of a cliff, sending a few pebbles tumbling over the edge, before dashing off at an even faster pace along the rim of the island. Many people would have considered it overly reckless to run so close to the edge, but Sonic knew the terrain well enough by now that he wasn't worried.

Less than a minute later, the hedgehog slowed, coming to a stop just as he reached Tails' front door. He knocked; no answer. Nobody had seen or heard from the kitsune or Nestor since they left the crash site, which meant that they were probably still hard at work on the damaged gunship. Sonic entered, shutting the door behind him. Almost immediately, he heard sounds of conversation from below; his guess had been correct. He headed downstairs to check on their progress.

Sonic could often identify Tails' state of mind by looking at the state of his work area. A few scattered sheets of paper on his desk meant he was thinking over an idea; a spotless room indicated that he had cleaned up and was about to showcase his creation; a table or desk holding a selection of random items (the most common state) generally pointed to boredom, indecision, or, as the case often was, preoccupation. As it was, the garage looked worse than the crash site had: a sure sign that his friend was hard at work. Sure enough, Tails was standing on top of the ship with an arc welder in his hand, apparently reattaching one of the rear stabilizers.

"Hey, Tails, how's it coming?" Sonic called as he picked his way carefully across the room to the ship. The kitsune shut off the device and turned to face his visitor, lifting the mask from his face. As he did so, Nestor's head appeared from behind the fin, his mirrored goggles over his eyes.

"Oh, hiya, Sonic!" Tails said as he saw who had entered. "Sorry about the mess; I wasn't expecting visitors." He set the torch down and hopped down to the floor. Nestor did the same, raising the goggles to his forehead. "So, what's up?"

"Oh, nothing," Sonic replied. "Just wanted to see how the repairs were coming. No one's heard from either of you since this morning, and I thought I should check to make sure you hadn't hurt yourself or anything."

"Well, everything's been coming along great here," Nestor said, beating Tails to the reply. "This kid's got skill, and he understands machines better than most people twice his age. Look what he found inside one of the forward thrusters." The gray hedgehog picked up something from the floor: a blackened, partially fused monkey wrench. "No wonder I've had such a hard time maneuvering lately!"

Sonic chuckled at this. "Didn't I warn you not to underestimate him just because of his age?"

"Well... yeah, but I didn't expect him to figure _Dione_ out so quick."

"Guys..." Tails interrupted, sounding embarrassed.

"Oh, sorry," Sonic replied; talking about his friend's intellect around him generally had that effect. After a few seconds of silence, an idea hit him. "Hey, how about I take Nestor to see the sights? I'll bet he's been curious."

"Are you kidding?" Tails replied. "He's been interrogating me about anything and everything ever since he came down here. Why don't you go see for yourself?" the kitsune added to Nestor.

"I'd like to," he began, "but don't you need my help here?"

"Nah, I'll be okay by myself," the fox insisted. "Go ahead, take some time off. Chaos knows, you probably need it." **[A/N: I don't think they have an actual god, and Chaos is the next best thing.]**

"What about you?" Nestor asked, already starting to head toward the door.

"Me?" Tails laughed. "This _is_ free time!" The kitsune climbed back up onto the ship, lowered his welding mask, and continued reattaching the fin. Nestor looked at him curiously for a few seconds before following Sonic out of the garage.


	8. Chapter 7: Hero and Martyr

**Sorry for the delay; I got hit with multiple essays in a short span of time. This will probably be common for the rest of the semester, so be prepared. As for the chapter... I don't know. This is my first time writing a scene like this, and even after all the tweaking and revision it's been through, I'm still not sure I've got it entirely right. Whatever your opinion is, be sure to let me know.**

* * *

Chapter 7 – Hero and Martyr

_Jungle - Angel Island, Mobius_

The next three days were an interesting time, both for Nestor and for the residents of the Angel Island area. Sonic, Knuckles, and the others went about their business as usual, and Tails spent the majority of the days working on his latest project. Nestor divided his time between being shown the sights by various people and helping Tails with the ship, though he soon realized that the kitsune fared perfectly well on his own. It was now the morning of Nestor's fourth day on planet Mobius. He had been following some narrow trails through the jungle, enjoying the calm, natural atmosphere, and was on his way back to Tails' place. He stopped as he heard something on the path ahead, distant but coming quickly toward him. The sound was familiar to him now, however, and he simply stood to one side to let Sonic pass. Rather than running by, however, the hedgehog stopped when he spotted Nestor. "There you are, Nestor, I've been looking for you."

"What for?" he replied simply.

"I wanted to ask you about something." Nestor thought he knew what was coming. Ever since he had gotten here, people had been questioning him about how it had happened. All he had done so far was drop cryptic hints when someone asked, and deflecting the constant interrogations was becoming routine. The hedgehog surprised him, though, by asking a different (though not entirely unrelated) question. "Tails was curious about the state your ship was in. He said a lot of the damage couldn't have come from the crash, and it looked like you were in a scrap with another ship beforehand. What's the deal?"

"Well, I already told you most of the basic info the other day," Nestor began. "I got attacked by a Marauder ship – just bandits and vagabonds who live by salvaging from other vessels – and _Dione_ took some heavy fire. I tried to engage the... warp drive, but she took a hit right as she was vanishing, and I came out off-target."

"So you weren't expecting to come out near a planet, you couldn't stop in time, and you wrecked?"

_Good,_ Nestor thought, _he's not asking too much._ "That's pretty much it," he replied out loud. "I wanted to come out a little higher up, then land near the center of the continent so I could find a city and get _Dione_ patched up."

"Well, I don't think that-- hang on..." Sonic frowned, becoming suddenly suspicious. "How did you know there are cities further inland?"

"I..." Nestor faltered. _It couldn't hurt_, he reasoned. _They already know I knew about the planet._ "I've been here before," he answered. "Though, you wouldn't have known about it."

"How do you know?" Sonic challenged, half-joking. "You might have been one of those UFO incidents."

"No, trust me, you don't remember it."

"How can you be sure?"

"I just... am."

"Alright, stop with the cryptic," Sonic said, crossing his arms. "I think we've shown ourselves worthy of your trust by now. I think that if you want to talk about these things, you need to be straight with us."

Nestor sighed. _He's right, they have done a lot for me. Still, if I tell them now, with no proof to show for it, they'd either dismiss it as a joke or question my sanity._ After a bit of thinking, he arrived at a compromise. "Alright, how's this: I'll say this as concisely as I can and leave it up to you to figure out what I'm getting at. The reason you won't remember my coming here is because it's your first time me being here."

Sonic was silent for a few seconds, apparently contemplating Nestor's words. "Um... what?" he said at last. "That didn't make any sense."

"It wouldn't make much more if I went for a full explanation," Nestor told the other hedgehog. "But I promise, once _Dione_'s repaired, I'll show you everything."

"Fair enough," Sonic replied disappointedly. The two hedgehogs turned away from each other and kept going toward their original destinations, Sonic taking off at a barely subsonic run and Nestor continuing at a walk. Even at that modest pace, it only took him a few more minutes to reach his destination. He knocked on Tails' door, and heard no answer; he was in the garage, as usual. Nestor entered and made his way down the stairs.

"Hey, Tails. How's it coming?" he called as he entered the room. There was no answer. Glancing around, he saw no sign of the kitsune. The garage was as it had been when he left; the floor was still a mess, but _Dione_ herself was in much better shape than a few days ago. "Tails?" Silence. This was a little weird; normally there would be a reply almost immediately. Nestor climbed into his ship's cabin and looked around. That room was empty as well. He decided to try the hold, and dropped down the elevator shaft.

The hold looked much as it had before, though it was now visible due to the sparse light that filtered in through the occasional portholes. Nestor immediately turned right down the narrow hallway, then stopped; one of the larger panels along the wall had been raised. He made his way to it and looked; sure enough, Tails was inside the crawlspace, sitting with his back against one side, staring out the window at the runway and the sea beyond. He seemed lost in thought, and did not appear to have noticed the hedgehog's arrival. As Nestor started to walk away, however, the kitsune proved him wrong and spoke. "Hey, Nestor," was all he said.

"Hey, Tails," he replied in the same manner. The fox's tone unnerved him a bit. Despite having knowledge and experience beyond his years, Tails was still a nine-year-old in many ways. He had a sort of good-natured enthusiasm that was hard to find in adults. There was none of that in him now; his voice and expression were blank and unreadable. Nestor considered for a moment, then decided to chance a question. "You alright, kid?" he asked. For a moment, there was no answer. "Suit yourself," Nestor said, and started to leave.

"Stay," the kitsune said, still not looking around. "I'm okay, it's just..." His voice trailed off, and he fell silent again.

"You... want to talk about it?" Nestor ventured. He had a hunch as to what this was about, but he didn't want to make himself obvious until he was sure.

Tails took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as if he were composing his thoughts. "It's..." For a moment, he looked as if he were about to explain himself. Then he faltered. "It's my problem," he finished. "It's not something I want you to worry about." He faced Nestor and attempted to smile, but failed.

Nestor paused again. Tails was normally very outgoing, so whatever was bothering him must have been pretty serious. Nestor decided to change tact in hopes of relieving some of the awkwardness. "Unfortunately, I think I'll have to worry about it," he said, intentionally dropping some of the concern in his voice. "Even if I didn't care about you personally, you're still the only person around here who can get _Dione_ back in working order. I don't like the idea of you being distracted while working with high-energy welding equipment."

* * *

Tails smiled again, this time genuinely. Nestor's joking comment had lightened the mood considerably. "Alright, you win," Tails conceded. "I should warn you, though, it's kind of a long story..."

"Even better," Nestor replied, sitting cross-legged inside the crawlspace. "It's not like I've got anywhere to be."

"Okay..." Tails took another deep breath, and began his story. "You know about what happened in the Orion cluster, right? You know, back when one of the Terroran fleets met us?" Nestor nodded. "How much do you know about who they were fighting?"

"Not a lot," Nestor admitted. "Only that they were great pilots. They managed to bypass the entire sixth fleet with only four ships. The few people who saw the landing party up close and survived said they were either heavily armored, or machines."

"They were right," Tails told him. "The ones you encountered were the Metarex. At the time, they actually controlled a large portion of the galaxy, and their borders were expanding rapidly. Terrora was probably one of the only planets not to succumb to them. The crystal you mentioned was a Planet Egg, which they created by storing a planet's life force in a gem. They were taking tons of them from thousands of worlds, including ours, which was why we set out in the first place." As he spoke, the memories started to come back to him; he continued his tale with renewed vigor. "We passed several worlds, some dying, others already dead, and a few still trying to fend off the Metarex. We did whatever we could to help, though it wasn't really that much. We followed their trail and eventually found one of their bases – this was a little while after we encountered the armada that attacked Terrora. We made it in and found some interesting things in their computers."

Tails stopped; there were other, more personal memories associated with that part of their trip. He pushed them aside and continued with his story. "We learned that they were in the midst of something called the Forestation Project, which was why they needed the Planet Eggs. We didn't find out the details for a while, but it turned out that the project was intended to wipe out all animal life in the universe and create... heh... _peace_." He put as much contempt into the last word as he could, remembering all the suffering that the Metarex had caused to achieve their goals.

"Classic logical fallacy," Nestor commented, nodding. "Some people think peace is worth the destruction of all who oppose them. Only, where they see peace, others see tyranny. Wars start, people die, and the most the rebels can hope for is for things to not get worse."

"Very true," Tails agreed. "Anyway, we eventually found out that the final stage of the project would happen at coordinates 0-0-0, close to the center of the galaxy. We got there just as it started." Images began to play through his mind like a reel of film. _The enormous Metarex floated motionless in space, ranged around an invisible point with Dark Oak's flagship at the center._ "We managed to break through their defense." _Lasers flashed from every direction, and the _Typhoon_ shook with the force of hundreds of impacts. The ship had withstood enough fire to destroy a much larger craft and dealt out many times that, but had somehow managed to hold together._.

"By the time we got to the center, the plan was already in motion. They created a sort of giant life form, hollow and filled with water created by the Planet Eggs." _A twisted, writhing mass of roots, large as a small planet, with a golden light shining through the cracks in the surface._ "I don't really know what happened next; I think there was some sort of anomaly inside the planet that made thousands of universes come together at that spot. The planetoid somehow managed to absorb the flood of energy and started using it to carry out Forestation." _A light, so bright it could be seen back home on Mobius, shone out from the planet in every direction, blinding Tails and the rest of the _Typhoon_'s crew. Though they could not see it, every planet that the light reached began to change, patches of green spreading across the surfaces._

"Needless to say, we were in a pretty tight spot there. Even worse, the planet started to drain the energy out of us as well. That was the other half of the final stage." _The headache, the sudden weakness, and the gnawing, hungry feeling of having the life siphoned out of his body._ "Fortunately, we were able to get off a shot from the main cannon, which destroyed the life form and stopped the Forestation." He fell silent. Everything beyond that first shot carried sadness and remorse with it. Luckily, he didn't have to go farther.

"Wow," Nestor said, apparently at a loss for anything intelligent to say. After a few seconds, he began again. "That's pretty impressive, fighting your way through an entire fleet with just one ship to work with like that. I mean... wow." Once again he was silent, and once again he took only a moment to recover. "One thing I don't get, though," he said, frowning. "You still haven't told me why you were depressed about all this."

Tails hesitated, then looked out the window again. "Just thinking about all the lives that war cost," he replied, which was true.

"Any lives in particular?" the hedgehog pursued.

Tails stiffened at that. How had he guessed so easily? The kitsune didn't really feel like discussing what was ailing him right now, but it seemed unavoidable. "Cosmo," he said simply. "She came here just before the Metarex stole our Planet Egg. She told us who the Metarex were and said she had come looking for someone to change the course of the war." He waited, expecting a question, but none came. He kept going.

"She came with us on the mission to free the Planet Eggs, helping us with certain things along the way. She knew the Metarex language, see, and she helped us translate a lot of the information we found. Cosmo... Cosmo was a good friend." He paused, fighting back his emotions. He didn't want to break down in front of Nestor if he could help it.

"What happened to her?" Nestor prompted tentatively. He was trying not to be impatient, but Tails could tell he was curious. He took a breath and continued.

"It was during the fight around the anomaly," he said, keep his voice calm and even. "She was the same species as the Metarex, though they were a different faction entirely, but all the same, she wasn't affected by the energy drain. It was thanks to her that we were able to get the cannon charged and ready to fire. But..." Tails faltered; he knew he should tell the truth, but some part of him thought otherwise. His unruly thoughts grappled for a few seconds. "But... when I..." The kitsune sighed; he couldn't do it. "When the cannon fired, she got caught in the blast." His jaw muscles tightened, both from the effort of controlling his emotions and from frustration that, even after all this time, he still couldn't face what he had done.

* * *

Nestor was at a loss for words – an even bigger loss for him than for most people. The story had forced him to revise his opinion of the kitsune once again. Before, he had certainly recognized that the fox had knowledge and experience beyond his years, but he had never suspected that he had been through so much already. With that kind of trauma behind him, it was a wonder Tails still managed to be as happy as he was most of the time.

"Nestor," the kitsune said, breaking the hedgehog out of his reverie, "why is it like this?"

"Why is what like this?" Nestor inquired, nonplussed.

"Everything," Tails replied. "People, planets, the universe, all of it. It doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't?"

"How can the twisted ambitions of just a few messed-up people cost the lives of thousands of others?" he asked grimly. He squeezed his eyes shut as if he were struggling to contain his emotions. "How can wars destroy so much, yet accomplish so little?" Tails suddenly banged his fist against the wall, shouting this time. "Why do people like Cosmo have to die because of other people's crimes!?" His voice cracked on the last word, and the kitsune doubled over, shaking with suppressed sobs.

"I don't know, kid," Nestor said, shaking his head. "Some stuff about this universe just doesn't seem fair. We've just gotta do our best and hope it's enough." **[A/N: This statement is true in a lot of cases, probably more often than we'd like.]**

"Still, I can't help thinking..." Tails began shakily, still looking at the floor. He sighed. "Never mind. It's not like I can fix it now."

"No, I guess not," Nestor replied, but inside his thoughts were racing. _Looks like it might be time for me to work my magic,_ he thought, grinning inwardly.

**

* * *

**

**So, now Nestor knows exactly what Tails' greatest regret is, and it seems to have given him an idea. Where could this lead? I say no more.**


	9. Chapter 8: Truths of the Traveler

**Okay, so, this story's last update was... three weeks ago? That's unacceptable. I'm really sorry for the delay; I've had a lot of things on my plate lately. I'll try not to take so long in the future, though I can't make any guarantees. On the bright side, this chapter is substantially longer than the others so far, and I think what it contains will make up for the wait. **

* * *

Chapter 8 – Truths of the Traveler

_Tails' house – Angel Island, Mobius_

The next morning, Nestor was up later than usual. Still drowsy, he wandered to the stairs to check on Tails' progress. The kitsune was up early and down in the garage, but something was different this time. When Nestor entered, the usual mess of tools and parts had disappeared, replaced by a clear floor. _Dione_ rested in the center of the room as before, but without the normal clutter around her. She looked just as she had before the wreck, with the exception of the color: a rusty orange-brown, with white stripes from the nose to the tips of the rear fins. Tails himself was sitting at his desk; he looked up as the hedgehog entered.

"Oh, good, you're up!" he said, standing up and running over to him. The fox showed no sign of the depression he had displayed yesterday and was back to his normal self. "Well, what do you think?"

"She looks nice," he commended. "I like the color; she used to be turquoise, but I think this suits her better." He walked around the ship, scrutinizing her from every angle. "Welding looks clean..." he muttered to himself. "Fins are well-centered." He examined the rear exhaust. "No gaps in the seal." He ducked down to look underneath. "Landing gear looks stable." He made his way up to the front. "Steering thrusters a little off, but fixable." He continued forward. "Nice touch," he said, noticing that Tails had painted his insignia on one of the forward stabilizers. He kept going until he stood before the ship's nose, looking down the length of her fuselage. "And finished off with a flawless paint job. You did good, kid," he concluded.

"It wasn't a big deal, really..." Tails began, looking at the floor.

"Don't downgrade yourself," Nestor interrupted; he was starting to get genuinely irritated by the fox's apparent refusal to acknowledge his own abilities. "You've got a lot of skill, not just for someone your age. Hell, most commercial shipyards would take at least _twice_ as long as you did to fix that kind of damage. And you did more; you made her _better_."

Tails' head snapped up in surprise. "How did you know about the extra features?"

"What extra features?" Nestor asked, just as confused. "I was talking about the color."

"Oh," Tails replied, taken aback. "I guess I'd better show you the new hardware, then." The kitsune walked over to a panel a few inches back from the nose and opened it, exposing a section of the machine's innards. Below the surface, Nestor spotted a device that had not been there before. "This is a CEBS module – that's Circulating Electron Beam Shielding. This device, along with several others across the ship, is part of a system that will greatly increase the stamina of the craft," Tails was saying. "It can stop many attacks before they even reach the hull."

"A shielding system," Nestor answered; he had heard of these before. "It projects a field of particles that block incoming projectiles. The question is, how are you planning to make this work on _Dione_?" The systems he had seen were very effective in combat, but the amount of power they required made them impractical to use on anything smaller than a heavy cruiser. To run the system on his gunship, the extra power supply would nearly double the craft's size.

"I was hoping you'd ask that," Tails replied, grinning. "Most of the shielding systems I've seen, including the one I originally had on the _Typhoon_, were CIPS, meaning they used a stream of ionized particles that are drawn toward the back of the ship by electromagnets. I found out that, if you substitute an electron beam and alter the magnetic field to surround the entire craft, you end up with a system that provides more complete shielding for a fraction of the energy. In fact, the power drain is almost nonexistent unless the shield is actually blocking something."

"I'm impressed," Nestor remarked; he had been saying that a lot lately. "Maybe I won't have to run next time a Marauder cruiser comes after me."

Tails chuckled. "Maybe not, but be careful not to get too cocky. The shields can only take so much punishment before they drop, and a strong enough hit will punch right through. It's better to leave them up all the time as an early-warning system. They make a nice blue flash when they take a hit."

"I'll keep that in mind," the hedgehog replied, also laughing slightly. "So, you got anything else to show me?"

"No, that's about it," Tails answered. "All I really added other than the shields were a few replacements for parts that were getting worn out. She should fly just like she did before, if a little smoother."

"In that case, there's only one thing missing," Nestor replied. "Let's test her out!" He started to walk toward the door, but then he remembered something. "Um... Tails? Remember how a lot of the plating on the bottom got scraped off in the crash? Well, the fuel tank is on the bottom, so..."

"You need to refill?" Tails finished. "Don't worry, I've got a supply down at the hangar. We'll take her down there and get her ready to fly."

* * *

Ten minutes later, the _X-Tornado_ lifted off of the runway and into the air, _Dione_ once again tethered beneath it. The jet leveled off and turned toward the coast, heading for the sea cliffs that concealed the entrance to the hangar. The underground building was used to store Tails' larger machines, those too big to keep in the garage attached to his house. Its location had been chosen for two reasons. One was to avoid becoming an eyesore; the other was for secrecy. Tails kept some potent technology in there, and he didn't like the idea of someone like Eggman getting his hands on it.

Tails maneuvered the jet out over the water, transitioning into walker mode and decreasing in altitude as he went. The plane rounded a precipice that jutted out away from the shore, revealing a sheltered cove behind it. Inside the cove was a wide strip of concrete, almost exactly the same color as the rock around it, with two rows of palm trees planted on either side. Tails tapped a few keys as he drew closer, and a huge metal door, recessed into the cliff and painted to resemble the rock, rose up slowly. The kitsune carefully guided the jet and its cargo through the opening and into the room. He set the gunship down just inside the door, then landed the _X-Tornado_ beside it. The door started to lower again behind them, and several broad strips of fluorescent lights came on, illuminating the room with a synthetic white radiance.

The entry room of the hangar was massive, close to two hundred feet wide and probably twice as tall. The back wall was not visible, hidden behind an equally huge starship that was resting about fifty feet back from the entrance. Two large projections that resembled wings had had half of their length folded upward in order to fit between the walls. Above the ship, a trolley holding a powerful winch and cable could be seen hanging from a boom that rode on tracks close to the ceiling – a crane strong enough to lift several tons. The huge door finished closing and locked into place with a loud, low clank that echoed around the cavernous room.

"I'll go ahead and get her hooked up. Feel free to look around," Tails said as he dismounted the jet. There was no response; the kitsune looked around and saw that Nestor was apparently entranced by the starship before him. "Uh, Nestor?"

There was no immediate reply. "That's the _Blue Typhoon_, isn't it?" he asked quietly.

"Yeah, that's the _Typhoon_," Tails replied, a little confused by Nestor's attitude. "What about it?"

"Amazing..." he said in barely more than a whisper. He walked up and put his hand on the starship's hull. "I've heard about the _Typhoon_, I've seen the vids, but I never thought I'd actually get to see her in person," he continued. His voice was still quiet, almost reverent.

Tails watched him for a few seconds, then turned back to his current task. After removing the net of cables, he made his way to a metal tank by the wall and returned dragging a six-inch-wide hose. He connected this to a port on _Dione_'s side, and it began to fill up the gunship's tank. This done, Tails looked around for Nestor, who seemed to have vanished.

* * *

_Seaside hangar – Angel Island vicinity, Mobius_

Nestor felt for a switch on the wall and located it. He flipped it on, and the room he had entered came into full view. It was small, like a walk-in closet, except that it extended backward for quite a distance. All around him were old machines, devices that looked as if they had never been completed. Some rested on the shelves that lined one wall, while others were too large and sat on the floor. Near the entrance, there appeared to have been some attempt to organize the collection, but the back was a different story. As he moved farther from the door, the arrangement became progressively more chaotic until the machines were practically piled up to the ceiling. A lot of the older artifacts looked as if they hadn't been so much as touched in years; many were thickly coated in dust and cobwebs.

"The sign says 'Private,'" came a voice from behind Nestor. He turned to see Tails standing in the doorway.

"Seriously? Sorry, I can't read Mobian." **[A/N: Looking back, I realize that if he could, the rest of this story could never have taken place. Funny how little things can change the course of events, eh?]** Nestor looked around at the contents of the room. "So, what's with all this? Are you just a pack rat, or what?"

"I don't really know," Tails answered thoughtfully. "Sentimental value, I guess. There are memories for all of these." He picked up a metal ring from the shelf and blew the dust off, revealing a reflective gold coloring. He began to spin the device around his finger. "This was the prototype of the dummy rings I use sometimes. There's no pin in it, so it should have exploded as soon as I picked it up. This is a dud, like ninety percent of the others I made. I ended up having to scrap the design and start over." He set the ring back down.

"Quite a lot of memories," Nestor commented, looking around at the impressive assortment of objects. His gaze stopped on a large piece of equipment that was sitting in the very back corner of the room. It was covered by a tarp, unlike any others in the room. It looked as if Tails was trying to draw attention away from it. This, of course, made Nestor notice it more.

"And what about this?" he asked, yanking the tarp off. The motion sent up a cloud of dust that made both of them cough. The machine underneath was about five feet tall and consisted of an inches-thick metal bubble that bristled with all manner of equipment. Many areas looked as if parts had been removed since the machine's creation. Curiously, a shadow seemed to cross Tails' face briefly when he saw what Nestor had discovered.

"It used to be a miniature particle accelerator," the kitsune said. "I doubt it would work now with all the parts I've salvaged. I was trying to recreate the technology that the Metarex against the Terroran fleet – you know, an artificial gravity well. The idea was that I could make one using purely energy and not need any matter, but anything that the machine was able to create evaporated almost instantly."

"You don't seem like the type who would build weapons of mass destruction," Nestor commented. "What were you planning on doing with a black hole?"

Tails thought for a moment. "Near the end of the fight, we started to get drawn into the generator that they created. Both of our engines were out, so we couldn't escape the field. We eventually realized that the weapon might be directed only at us. We managed to put up an energy field to hold the _Typhoon_ together until we reached the center. As soon as we crossed the event horizon, gravity reversed and shot us out the other end. If we could control something like that, but even more powerful, we could launch ships across the galaxy faster than the speed of light."

"Not possible," Nestor interrupted automatically. "Light speed is a physical constant; the only way for an object with a mass greater than zero to reach it is using either-"

"Infinite energy for a finite time or finite energy for an infinite time," Tails finished. "In other words, doing it would take more energy than there is in the universe."

Nestor was impressed. "You know your physics, kid," he commented. He frowned suddenly. "Not trying to break that law, were you?"

"What? No, why would I-"

"Because if you were," Nestor continued, "that would mean you were trying to travel through time..."

"No, I-"

"Wouldn't it?

"Time travel isn't possible," Tails insisted. "People have tried."

"How long did it take you to decide that?" Nestor asked casually.

"What do you-"

"Oh, come one, Tails," Nestor interrupted. "You try to build a device to accomplish something you know is impossible? I may not be as smart as you are, but I can still spot when something doesn't add up. Now, how about you tell me what you were _really_ planning to do with that generator? And no beating around the _kranghi_, eh?" he added, slipping a Terroran word in on a whim.

"Oh, because you never do that, right?" Tails shot back. "How about you stop 'beating around the kuran-guh-hee,' as you put it, and do what you promised to do? Your ship's in good condition, so now there's just your side of the deal to complete." **[A/N: "Kuran-guh-hee" was about as close as I could get to the way that's actually pronounced. I'm still working out the finer points of the Terroran language; I'll put some info in my profile when I find the time.]**

Nestor was taken aback; he must have struck a nerve to get the kitsune to bristle like that. He was almost equally impressed by how close the kid had come to the pronunciation of "_kranghi_," though he had exaggerated the accent and mispronounced one of the consonant sounds. Minor issues of linguistics aside, Tails was right; he had done his part, and Nestor owed him an explanation.

"Alright," he began, "but first, you'll have to submit to some more explanation. I'm not beating around the _kranghi_ again," he added as Tails opened his mouth, "I'm just giving you a necessary prerequisite to what I'm going to show you. Less emphasis on the first and third syllables, but the way," he said as an afterthought. "And it's not 'kur,' it's 'kur.'" He softened the vowel and rolled the "r" slightly the second time. **[A/N: If you're familiar with Spanish, it's basically the same pronunciation of "r." The best way I know to explain it is that it has a bit of the "d" sound in it as well.]**

Nestor keyed in _Dione_'s entry code – he had reactivated the security system once repairs were completed – and entered the cabin with Tails behind him. He led the fox down into the hold, then stopped and turned toward him. "Do you know what this is?" he asked, indicating one of the hatches on the wall.

"It's a computer array, and a really big one," Tails replied almost instantly. "I took a look inside the other day; nothing but chips, circuit boards, and cooling fans. With a hard drive that large, I can't help but wonder about what you're storing."

"Why didn't you ask?" Nestor queried.

"I didn't think you'd tell me."

"No, I probably wouldn't've, at that," he conceded. "This is a crucial part of the Machina system, a bit of technology I developed... oh, about two years ago. Bulky and inconvenient at times, but necessary."

"Doesn't 'machina' just mean 'machine'?" Tails asked, a little skeptically.

"Yes, technically, but there's more to it than that." Nestor took Tails back up the elevator and around to the nose of the ship, talking as they went. "In ancient theater arts, about the best special effects they could get were smoky fires and a wooden hoist. The hoist was often used to lower actors onto the stage, usually those portraying gods. The appearance of a god was often the solution to an otherwise hopeless situation. In time, the phrase '_deus ex machina_' came to mean something that brought about such a salvation. The Machina system is the hoist, and the people who use it become, for however short a time, a bit like gods."

"But what does the system actually _do_?" Tails questioned.

"So many questions. Don't stop, kid; it's the best way to learn. I'll put it simple: the Machina system was created to allow people to do what anyone would do if they had the power of a god."

"And what's that?"

"I'm getting to that," Nestor assured him, holding up a hand. "Just give me a minute."

* * *

Tails followed Nestor to the bow of the ship, where the hedgehog typed a command into a remote on his wrist. A hatch on the nose slid open, and a long, antenna-like device extended. The end carried a bulbous, armored piece of equipment with a sharp point at the tip and several lenses around the sides. Another command, and a dozen more hatches opened, each revealing a small laser cannon. They lacked the size or positioning to be effective weapons, so Tails assumed they carried out some other function.

"By now," Nestor was saying, "I trust that you've been looking at these devices for a few seconds, and chances are you're wondering what the hell all this is."

"Not in so many words," Tails replied, "but yeah. I assume the lasers are aimed into those lenses," he continued, pointing, "but I can't think what the point of that could be except to focus them into a larger beam. And if that were the case, there would need to be another lens on the end of the antenna, and there isn't."

"That's not a bad guess, actually," Nestor commented. "You're right, the lasers are being focused together by the lenses, but not as a weapon. No, this is the answer to the question you guys have been asking me all week: how did _Dione_ and I get here?" He walked over closer to the antenna's tip. "Check out the point on the end."

Tails did so. It was about six inches long, crystalline in shape, and black – so black, in fact, that there was no reflection at all despite its smooth and polished surface. It almost looked like a hole in his vision. A light-absorbing material, perhaps?

"This crystal absorbs every bit of light energy that strikes it," Nestor explained, confirming Tails' guess. "It comes from one of Skernu's moons, which is made entirely of the mineral and can only be located by its radar shadow. Therefore, the crystal is called skernium – not the most original of names, but there you are. It's the same material used to coat these," he said, indicating the goggles that he never seemed to take off. "Between it and the mirrored lenses, I can pretty much look right at a star without hurting my eyes."

"How does that work for a transport system?" Tails asked.

"I'm getting to it," Nestor repeated. "As it turns out, gravity really is the answer to bypassing the light-speed limit, though not in the way you were thinking."

"I thought you said breaking that law was impossible," Tails challenged.

"I didn't say 'break,'" the hedgehog replied. "I said 'bypass.'"

Tails was completely nonplussed now, a feat that few had ever been able to accomplish but that Nestor had now done more than once. Some of his confusion must have shown on his face, because after a moment Nestor sighed.

"A little-known fact, and something I've even had to argue over with a couple of people, in that space doesn't have infinite capacity. It sounds a little abstract, but pretty much anyone would agree that two objects with mass cannot exist in the same place at the same time." Tails nodded unnecessarily. "The same rule applies with massless particles like photons; space can only hold so much."

"And if that limit is exceeded, gravity reverses and pushes the particles away from each other," Tails finished. "According to loop quantum gravity theory, that is."

"I wouldn't call it a theory," Nestor replied. "I've seen it happen, or at least been able to see the effects." He turned to the crystalline needle again. "Skernium, unlike most materials, does not convert absorbed light energy into heat. Instead, the rays actually pass into it and reflect off the insides of the facets. The crystal is almost perfectly transparent, though it appears solid black because almost none of the light escapes. The point is, the photons are still present in the crystal, bouncing around like rubber balls in a glass box."

"So," Tails began hesitantly, "you're using the lasers to channel large amounts of light into the crystal... in order to exceed the particle-containment limit?"

"Bingo," Nestor answered, clapping his hands together.

"But why would you want to do that?" the kitsune asked. "It seems like all you'd accomplish is to shatter the crystal."

"With most minerals, that would be the case. However, skernium doesn't actually absorb any of the light energy inside it. It's like firing a laser at a perfectly transparent or reflective surface: won't do jack, will it? The photons reach the density limit and get repelled from each other all over the place, but since they don't have any mass, they can't exert any actual force. The needle wouldn't overheat, either, because the photons don't convert into heat energy. And they can't escape the confines of the skernium crystal."

"Then what happens to them?" Tails asked, knowing that Nestor was hoping he would.

"Under 'loop quantum gravity,' as you call it, space-time is not a continuum, but actually a mesh of units so small that the boundaries between them hardly effect us at all. The units can be shifted by the presence of a mass, hence gravity. When space is overstuffed, gravity reverses in the affected area. Something has got to move."

"And since the photons can't..." Tails said thoughtfully. Suddenly, comprehension dawned on his face. "You're not saying you can actually manipulate space?"

"Space-_time_," Nestor corrected. "Relativity was right about that part, at least. But yes, that's exactly what I'm saying."

Tails considered disputing this claim, but thought better of it. Instead, he decided to suspend his disbelief for the moment and find out a bit more. "What happens once the space-time units have been shifted out of position?" he asked.

"Well, you end up with something like a hole in space," the hedgehog replied. "Once that has been created, the needle does this." He entered a third command, and the device, crystal and all, split and folded outward in twelve pieces, revealing a small set of thrusters in each. "The needles all still have the light inside; it can't escape because the crystal splits directly along its molecular structure. It was already in twelve pieces before, but the light could move between them because they were touching. Anyway, the light inside each point is still overcompressed, so the needles drag the space-time distortion with them, leaving a hole in the middle. The pods then detach and fly all the way to the back of the ship, where they join the points and close the rip."

Tails had a thousand questions, but decided on the one that he deemed most important. "But what then? Your ship's particles wouldn't have any space-time units to function in. Wouldn't they just disperse?"

"No, not actually," Nestor answered, "because both energy and matter are bound by conservation of motion. They can't be created or destroyed, which means they have to go somewhere when they dissipate. Outside of the space-time mesh, there's nowhere for them to go. _Dione_ is... oh, how do I put this? _Dione_ is within the fabric of the universe, in the technically nonexistent region between the space-time units. There's no differentiation there; every such hole is the same hole. The ship is everywhere, because it doesn't exist in normal terms. It's hard to put into words, but do you see what I'm getting at?"

"I think so..." Tails said slowly. "It's like space has gaps in it that we normally don't see because we can't leave normal space, and _Dione_ somehow gets into those gaps."

"That's a good way of putting it," Nestor replied. "So, once you're inside, there remains the question of how to reenter normal space-time. That's not as hard as it sounds; it requires a second rip. Fortunately, the Machina system can control where that rip appears. When both rips are open, _Dione_ exists in both; when the first one closes, she exists only in the second one. Rips can be opened at any point in the four dimensions..."

"So you can come out anywhere," Tails finished, awed by what had been said. Nestor had just explained a very complex but theoretically plausible way of bypassing the light-speed limit. Suddenly, a second realization hit him: Nestor had said "the _four_ dimensions." Could he have accomplished what Tails, like so many others, had been trying and failing to do for so long?

"Nestor," he began, "you do realize what this means, don't you? This is so much more than just a teleporter, this is..."

"A time machine?" he supplied. "You're the first person to figure that out; I usually have to tell people outright after I build up the suspense a bit."

Tails was hardly listening; his mind was too busy sorting out the storm of thoughts, questions, and emotions it had just been hit with. What could this mean? Would it be possible to gain insight about the future? To correct mistakes of the past? As soon as that idea crossed the kitsune's mind, another hit him that made all the others pale in comparison. He remembered that fateful day when the Metarex were destroyed, and thought of the two people who would never truly recover from what happened there...

No. He couldn't allow himself to think those thoughts, at least not yet. There were other factors to consider: the possible repercussions of altering past events, or whether it was even possible to do so. _No better person to ask,_ he reasoned. He started to speak, but Nestor held up a hand.

"I'm going to guess," he began, "that your mind just did what most would in this situation. After a couple seconds of reeling, memories started surfacing – bad ones, most likely – and you started to wonder what the possibility of time travel might mean for them." The tone of Nestor's voice had changed; he sounded like a salesman addressing a potential customer. "And just now, you were about to ask the big question: is it possible to alter the past? The answer to that question... is no."

Tails' heart sank. For the tiniest fraction of a second, in the pause before Nestor had said those last two words, he had let himself hope that such a thing might be possible. This was followed immediately by another memory, one that fueled his reply: "You're wrong."

"What?" he asked, taken aback. Apparently he had never received that particular reply before.

"You're wrong," he repeated with growing conviction. "It _is_ possible to change the past; I've seen it happen. I've _done_ it."

"And when was that?" the hedgehog asked, his tone skeptical and slightly patronizing.

"The Battle of Orion Cluster," he answered. "Something we never told the Terroran fleet was that we knew a bit about the graviton generator beforehand. We didn't have details, but we knew something devastating was going to happen from the moment we saw the fleet ships." Nestor listened quietly, genuinely interested now. "A few hours before, we found a cloud of debris made up of Metarex ships and ones that we later realized were Terroran. Among that cloud was one of the _Typhoon_'s escape pods, and I was inside. He – I – told us that something was going to destroy the _Typhoon_, and that we had to stop that from happening. As you can see, we made it out alive."

Nestor thought for a moment. "Do you remember telling your crewmates this?" he finally asked.

"What?"

"Do you remember being there when the _Typhoon_ was destroyed and going back to warn your past self?"

"No..."

"So, for all you know, the other you might not have told the full truth?"

"I guess not, but why would he lie about that?" Tails asked.

"Ask yourself that," Nestor replied. "He was you, after all; you understand him better than me. For my part, I started experimenting with that idea almost as soon as I developed the Machina system. So far, I've never been able to change the past. I've created all kinds of other weird situations, don't get me wrong – I think I might have caused a mobius cycle once – but the end result was always consistent. As for this thing with the other you... my guess is there's something else needs to happen before that loop can close."

* * *

Tails turned away without another word, staring at the floor. _Well played, Nestor,_ the hedgehog thought, berating himself for being so blunt. He should have realized what the kitsune was, more than likely, thinking about during their discussion. He decided to try a little damage control. "Just because you can't change the past doesn't mean there's no hope," he began.

Tails turned, suddenly interested, and Nestor realized he had spoken without knowing where his train of thought led. As he groped for something, anything, to back up what he had just said, he suddenly realized that there might indeed be a way around the issue. "I know what you're thinking about, and there might be a way to fix it. Now, are you absolutely sure that she was killed when the cannon went off?"

Tails looked at him blankly. "That blast was enough to destroy a small moon," he said. "No one could have survived that."

"Okay," Nestor said. "So, what happened afterward?"

"Sonic tried to use Chaos Regeneration..."

"He did?" Knuckles had explained Chaos Control to him the day before, and that very technique had been mentioned. As the echidna told it, Chaos Regeneration was misnamed; the skill could create anything the user could imagine. The most common use was to reconstitute something that had been damaged or destroyed. It was useful for healing wounds, and was said to even be capable of bringing the dead back to life. "Did it work?" the hedgehog asked.

"Well... sort of," Tails replied a little hesitantly. "She didn't come back in the form she had taken before; she was a seed."

"A seed?" Nestor asked. That didn't seem to add up with what he knew about Chaos Regeneration; his mind quickly spotted an information gap. "How do you know it was even her? A seed doesn't seem like something Sonic's mind would turn her into."

"I asked him the same question a little while after he gave me the seed," Tails said a little defensively. "He told me he didn't know why it happened, but he was sure the Regeneration had worked. He said he could feel it working."

Nestor could still see a gaping hole in Tails' reasoning. "Couldn't that seed have come from that tree-planet thing the Metarex made?"

"What?" the kitsune asked; apparently he hadn't thought of that. "I supposed it could have, but then why would...?" His voice trailed off, and a second later his eyes widened. "Because it was true," he said, apparently in answer to his unfinished question. He gasped. "What if that means...? Nestor, I need to go back to the garage and check on something." He ran for the _Tornado_, which had been staying in the hangar for the last four days.

"I'll meet you there," Nestor called, laughing as the biplane lifted off through the still-opening doors. He climbed into his own craft and followed.

* * *

**So, now we finally have at least part of Nestor's secret, and Tails seems to be pretty excited about something because of it. Where could this lead? Read on, for all shall be revealed in time.**


	10. Chapter 9: Secrets of the Fall

**So, it looks like I managed to avoid another month-long update. Unfortunately, exams are steadily drawing closer, so expect a slowdown around that time. On the bright side, Christmas vacation starts tomorrow; updates should happen faster for the next couple weeks, so hopefully you won't need to wait as long between chapters. In the meantime, feel free to drop me a review if you have any opinions to give.**

**Oh, and for those of you who didn't understand how the Machina system works, here's a summary. Basically, space is full of unimaginably small gaps. Nestor uses lasers to concentrate energy inside a crystal and wedge open one of those gaps. Once _Dione_ is inside, she can get anywhere just by opening a second rip. The rips can open anywhere and at any time, which allows for both teleportation and time travel.  
**

* * *

Chapter 9 – Secrets of the Fall

_Sea cliffs – Angel Island vicinity, Mobius_

For the third time in five days, Nestor was treated to a spectacular aerial vista of the forested landscape around Angel Island, and saw it for the first time from inside the cockpit of his own craft. It felt good to be at _Dione_'s helm again, a refreshing dose of familiarity in an environment that was still largely alien to him. He flew alongside the cliffs for a while, watching the jagged rocks flash by while the sea beat against them far below.

When he tired of the monotonous view, Nestor turned _Dione_'s nose toward the floating landmass to his left. Both pairs of turning jets went to full thrust to push the nose up, and one set turned counterclockwise the steer the craft portside.

The gunship's hull was divided into parallel rings in places, some of which could be rotated around the ship's internal frame. Two adjacent sections near the bow each held a pair of maneuvering jets. The thrusters on each ring were pointed at right angles to each other, allowing the full set to be arranged in a variety of ways. Three other segments along the fuselage carried gun turrets and missile banks, and a fourth in front of the canopy held three small laser cannons.

_Dione_ leveled off once its vector was set, the turning jets returning to their previous positions. The craft was hardly elegant – it took all four thrusters just to keep the nose even with the stern, and its bulky, heavyweight design made it about as maneuverable in the air as a seal was on land. The appearance was deceiving, though; in space, the environment _Dione_ was built for, it was top of its class for speed and versatility.

Nestor had to work to make a landing on Tails' runway; there wasn't a lot of space. He steered his ship down below the level of the projection, then nosed up quickly, cutting the main engine as he drew level with the runway. The turning jets worked with blinding speed to align the fuselage perpendicular to the surface, then control the descent. A magnetic field kicked in, creating a heat-haze distortion below the craft and helping it to land. The nose tilted forward, and _Dione_ touched down, first on the aft landing gear, then on the fore. Nestor powered down the vehicle and stepped out, instinctively keeping away from the edge.

Tails had parked the _Tornado_ just inside the garage – haphazardly, by the looks of it. The fox himself was sitting at a desk at the back of the room, apparently engrossed in something. Nestor crossed the room and looked over his shoulder; the screen was showing a video feed, along with several meters and graphs. Tails heard the hedgehog's approach and paused the video, causing the data readouts to freeze as well.

"Oh, hey Nestor," he said, turning back to the screen when he saw who was behind him. "This is a recording from when the Metarex tried to carry out Forestation. I've been trying to figure out what went on for a while now, but there's a problem." He restarted the video, and Nestor watched as the cannon was fired at an indistinct mass in the distance. He glanced at Tails to see his reaction, but the kitsune was perfectly composed. The screen went white immediately after the impact, and the energy readings rose wildly; some seemed to max out and stop rising, while others were replaced by error messages. "The sensors overloaded," Tails explained. "I think the energy level exceeded the system's processing power."

"Can you tell anything that happened?" Nestor asked.

"That's what I'm going to find out," Tails replied. "The backup sensors are less accurate, but the programs have buffers in them that prevent them from taking readings higher than a certain level. I was about to try filtering out some of the background radiation from the blast."

Nestor gestured for him to proceed. Tails closed the windows for the primary sensors, then typed in a few adjustments before restarting the tape. He stared at the screen intently. He continued after the screen went white; about thirty seconds later, he suddenly shouted, "There!" and paused the video.

"Where?" Nestor said just as loudly, looking wildly at every part of the screen. "I didn't see anything."

Tails sighed and ran the video back several seconds. "Watch that part," he said, pointing at two sections of one of the graphs. It showed a series of oscillating bars over what looked like a picture of the light spectrum. The fox started the video again; this time, Nestor kept his eyes on the two points Tails had indicated. After a few seconds, he spotted a sustained rise in both areas, which faded a few seconds later. "Did you see it?" Tails asked, stopping the feed again.

Nestor nodded. "Mid-ultraviolet and low-frequency gamma," he said.

"Both characteristic of Chaos Emerald radiation," Tails replied. "That was Sonic using Chaos Regeneration."

"And if it worked," Nestor began hesitantly, "There ought to be another spike a few seconds later, right?"

"Exactly," the kitsune said. He pressed play yet again; sure enough, a second rise in both frequencies occurred about five seconds after the first.

"Too much energy for a tiny little seed," Nestor commented.

"Yeah..." Tails said, his mind elsewhere. It didn't take much brain-wracking for Nestor to guess what was going through the kid's head. Nestor's mind, meanwhile, had already realized the implications and was hard at work figuring out what might take place. He reached around Tails for the mouse and began to run the video back at double speed. He watched in reverse the formation of the planetoid (noting that another blast had apparently been fired prior to the one they had just watched in slow motion) and the movements of the assembled Metarex fleet. He paused the tape when he saw something odd.

"Tails," he said, "take a look at those ships." Tails did, and didn't appear to notice anything unusual. "What are they firing at?" the hedgehog prompted.

Tails frowned. "I don't know," he said. "There wasn't anyone there except us."

"Are you _sure_?" Nestor asked. "Maybe it was something too small to spot from that distance. Like... a _gunship_, perhaps?"

Tails looked at him. "You mean... we might've been there?" Nestor shrugged, but his grin betrayed what he really thought was the answer. "I... but what if this means... I've gotta tell the others about this! This is... this is... thank you, Nestor, thank you so much for this!" He shook the hedgehog's hand vigorously with both of his own, then ran at top speed up the stairs and into his house. Nestor heard the front door bang open, followed by what sounded like a a shout of joy. He chuckled at the young fox's excitement; he always liked the feeling that helping people gave him. It didn't stop him from charging for his services in most cases – he had to make a living somehow – but it was a definite perk.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

_Tails' house – Angel Island, Mobius_

Tails ran out of his house without even stopping to shut the front door. He took off with the aid of his tails and made for Sonic's place on the other side of the island, about a quarter of a mile away as the crow (or kitsune) flies. He soon touched down outside the house, having made the trip in just over two minutes. He knocked on his friend's door, and was answered almost instantly by the blue-furred hedgehog. "Oh, hey Tails," he said when he saw who had knocked. "What's up?"

"I need to... tell you... what Nestor and I... just figured out," Tails replied, out of breath from his top-speed flight. Sonic gestured for him to enter, which he did.

The house was smaller than the fox's, with just a bedroom, a bathroom, and an adjoined living room and kitchen. Both of them took a seat at the coffee table, and Tails immediately launched into an account of everything that had happened since finished the repairs on _Dione_.

"Wait a minute, go back a bit," Sonic interrupted after a few minutes. "You're not saying Nestor's actually created a time machine?"

"Yeah, he has," Tails said matter-of-factly. "I know it sounds kinda far-fetched, but bear with me for a minute, okay?"

"Oh, I know time travel's possible," Sonic said. "I haven't forgotten the 'tale of two Tails.'"

Tails smiled slightly at the off-color joke, then returned to his story. "So, as soon as I heard that, I went back to check on some old tapes from the _Typhoon_. You know, from when..."

"I know," Sonic said, holding up a hand. "Tails, you know you'll have to put this behind you eventu-"

"Shush," the kitsune interrupted, his voice forceful enough to quell his friend's at once. "As I was saying, I'd never been able to see anything that happened after the blast because the primary sensors overloaded and the entire screen whited out. This time, though, I took a look at the backup sensors, which were still online. After filtering out the background radiation, I discovered something interesting."

"What could you see?" Sonic asked, visibly interested.

"Nothing, technically; the screen was still filled with light until Shadow Chaos Controlled the explosion away. However, the spectrum radiation scanners picked up something interesting. After the initial blast, they detected two short bursts of Chaos energy, one after the other."

"Chaos Regeneration," Sonic said.

"Exactly," the fox replied. "The first burst was when you and Shadow fired the energy into the blast area, and the second was when the actual event took place. Nestor pointed out that it was probably not the seed, judging by the strength of the second spike."

"I knew it!" Sonic declared. "I always thought there was something weird going on there. It felt like too much energy for a seed that small."

"There's more," Tails said, once again garnering Sonic's full attention. "Earlier in the video, Nestor noticed a group of Metarex ships firing at something. We were too far away to tell what it was, but we've got a hunch." The hedgehog merely looked at him expectantly. "It was _Dione_," Tails explained.

"What, the ship?" Sonic asked, taken aback. "I though you said Nestor didn't know about that until... Wait." He fell silent as he realized the full meaning of what his friend had just told him. "You don't think...?"

"I don't just think," Tails replied. "I'm certain of it."

"But... if that was time travel, why was it on the video? It shouldn't have appeared on there until _after_ he went back in time."

"Time travel doesn't work that way," Tails said. "The timeline is self-consistent and unchanging, according to Nestor. If you depart for the past now, you arrived _before_; whatever you did then _already happened_, you just don't experience it until the time of departure."

"Then how did the other you change the past at Orion Cluster?" Sonic challenged. "If that consistency thing is true, then we should've gotten stuck in a loop."

"I don't know about that one," Tails admitted. "I asked Nestor about it; he said there was probably more to the equation, something we don't know yet."

"Well, either way, I'm still not sure what you're getting at here," Sonic said.

Tails sighed. "Well, we can reasonably guess that _Dione_, and therefore Nestor, was at the Fall, probably through time travel because he doesn't seem to remember it. There's also a chance that we were with him, since he's mentioned renting out his technology to other people. Add to that what we know about the Chaos Regeneration you performed, and we have a possible reason for the time travel to happen."

"So... you mean..." Sonic began hesitantly, "you're going to convince Nestor to take us back?"

"It's a definite possibility," Tails replied, smiling slightly. He could almost see the ideas piecing themselves together in his friend's mind. It was rather entertaining to watch.

"And you would do that... because you want to save Cosmo?" the hedgehog continued.

"Why else?" Tails asked.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Sonic knew he wasn't meant to answer; both of them knew how quickly the kitsune would jump at a chance like that. The problem was how determined he was; Tails was usually clear-headed enough for three people, but the hedgehog had a feeling that the young fox's rationality had gone down the drain the moment he realized what the video meant. He needed to reason with his friend, and he would need to do so carefully.

"Tails, I'm no doctor, but I know it can't be healthy to obsess over something like this."

"Only if there's no way to find whatever you're obsessing over," Tails said.

"True," Sonic replied, backing off a little, "but this... what you're thinking of doing would be a pretty slim chance. You'd be going into a war zone with nothing but a measly little gunship between you and the Metarex armada."

"_Dione_'s not that weak," Tails said. "I checked out her weaponry, and she's a pretty impressive machine. You wouldn't want to trifle with her. Besides, the Metarex were more focused on the _Typhoon_ at the time, with most of the other areas unguarded."

"Still... Tails, I don't like the odds. I don't think Cosmo would want you to go get yourself blown up for her sake." Tails' head dropped, and for a moment Sonic thought he had overdone it. But when the fox looked back up, there was no sadness in his face, just firm resolve.

"Sonic," he began, "I know the odds are tough, and there's a good chance I won't make it back alive. But this is something I have to do, for my own sake as much as Cosmo's. I have to at least try, so that one way or another, my conscience will be clear."

Tails' determination astounded Sonic, though in a way he supposed he shouldn't be surprised. He was a bit clueless about some things, but according to Amy, there had been more than friendship between Cosmo and his friend. He didn't doubt the truth in Tails' words; the kitsune had been haunted by guilt as much as by grief in the time since the Fall, and though both had lessened with time, they had never completely faded. Even so, the idea of his friend giving up his life for a chance this slim was not something Sonic would put up with.

"Tails, what you're talking about is suicide!" Sonic said. "You'll either bring back someone who died over a year ago, or you'll die trying and not have to cope with the loss anymore? That's not clear thinking, Tails; you of all people should know that."

"Clear thinking isn't what we need here," the fox replied softly. "_Clear thinking_ is why I fired that cannon. Sometimes, doing what you feel is right is the best way to make decisions; _you_ should know _that_, Sonic." Tails stood up, and Sonic followed suit. "Besides," he continued, "trying this is the only way I'll even have a chance of fixing what happened at the Fall. 'Nothing starts until you take action,' right?"

Sonic realized he had lost this round; it would be hard to argue with that, as he was the one being quoted. "So, what're you going to do?" he asked.

"I'm gonna talk to Nestor," Tails replied, a trace of cheerfulness returning to his bearing. "If something like this is possible, he'll be able to figure out how to do it." The fox walked over to the doorway, then stopped and looked back at Sonic, apparently expecting a reply. After a few seconds, he turned and continued on his way, taking off and heading back to his house. Sonic remained seated for several minutes, thinking, then abruptly stood and dashed off, heading for Mystic Ruin.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

_Tails' house – Angel Island, Mobius_

Nestor stood outside the small cliffside house that had, for the past several days, become like a second home to him. Tails had left several minutes ago, and the sun was nearing its peak in the sky. Nestor had quickly gotten bored and decided to look around a bit. As someone who knew him well might have expected, he had ignored the myriad half-finished devices in Tails' garage and headed upstairs. **[A/N: That's Nestor for you. His mind is kind of backwards to everyone else's.]** His attention had been drawn to a small sapling beside the front door, which he was now examining.

The tree (at least, it looked like one; Nestor wasn't very familiar with the wildlife of this planet) was about three feet tall and barely over an inch wide at the base. It couldn't have been much more than a year old, if the growth cycles of similar plants from other worlds were anything to judge by. The sapling was in full bloom; pale pink, five-petaled flowers lined the tips of the branches and contrasted sharply with the dark-colored trunk and limbs. **[A/N: Not really what oak flowers look like, but I have an explanation. Since the Metarex are from planet Green Gate, it wouldn't make sense for the plant they became/bonded with to be a terrestrial or Mobian species. So, Dark Oak couldn't *technically* turn into an oak tree. Besides, oak flowers aren't exactly aesthetically pleasing; call it poetic license.]** Nestor didn't have to think too hard to realize that he was looking at the product of Tails' seed. Now that he saw the plant with his own eyes, he could easily imagine what the Metarex's anomaly might have looked like, with the roots forming a globe the size of a moon and the branches probably spreading out for miles. The picture his mind constructed was an awe-inspiring one.

He stopped his train of thought a few minutes later as he spotted something descending toward the house. It took him a moment to realize he was looking at Tails; though he knew the kid could fly, he hadn't actually him do it before, just hover or catch himself occasionally. The kitsune touched down in front of the door, his rapidly spinning tails coming to a stop. "Where'd you fly off to?" Nestor asked, partly just to announce his presence.

Tails turned, apparently just noticing he was there. "I went to tell Sonic about what we figured out," he replied brightly. "I thought he'd be more excited than he was, to tell the truth."

"Not exactly thrilled, was he?"

"No, not really," Tails answered. "He said he didn't like the odds. He thinks I'm gonna get myself killed."

"I can see where he's coming from," Nestor commented, nodding. "It's a risky mission at best, and I'm not sure we can expect the best with the Metarex as our enemy."

"You don't sound worried, though," Tails countered.

"I trust myself and _Dione_," he replied simply.

"Hmm..." The kitsune looked at Nestor thoughtfully, contemplating his expression. After a moment, he looked to the right of the hedgehog where the sapling was. "I'm guessing you know what this is," he said, changing the subject abruptly.

"Eh?" Nestor said, confused at first. He followed Tails' eyes. "Oh, the tree? Yeah, that's from the seed, right?"

The fox nodded. "I planted it after we got home," he explained. "To be honest, I'd hoped it would grow into more than just a tree, though now that I know where it came from, I guess that's all it really _could_ grow into."

"Yeah, I guess so," Nestor replied using only half of his mind; the other half was digesting Tails' words. It surprised him slightly that the kid was able to talk about this subject so easily, especially considering how he had broken down the day before. Nestor decided it was because of what they had learned. Which reminded him: Tails was a potential customer for the Machina system.

"So," Nestor said, steering the conversation back to the present, "let's talk about this mission of yours. For starters, you and I both know that you'll need my help just to get there." Nestor was switching tactics, going into business mode. The two of them started to walk back into the house as they talked.

"Yes," Tails confirmed, "and I also know that you have to make a living somehow. I don't know how much Rings would be worth to you..."

Nestor laughed. "Not to worry, my friend. As I recall, we already had an arrangement. You fix up my ship, and I pay you back somehow later on."

"Nestor, I told you..." Tails began.

"Unless you'd rather I charged for this," Nestor added, cutting across the kitsune's sentence. There was no need to say more; his reply had had the desired effect. "Good, now that's out of the way," Nestor said, continuing as though nothing had happened. "Let's talk strategy."

* * *

**So, Tails is now firmly set on his goal, and Nestor is going to help him accomplish it. The question is, is something like this even possible? And what of Sonic and the others? Will they agree to come on such a risky venture, or will Tails have to go it alone? Many more chapters await completion, and with them will come answers. (For some reason, my mind kept wanting to type "Find out next time on Sonic X!" there.)**

**Read on, dear reader...  
**


	11. Chapter 10: Captain and Crew

**Once again, sorry for the delay; I was hoping to finish this sooner, but it looks like I at least got it posted before the end of break. And yes, it is a little short, but the alternative would have been about ten pages long and taken a lot longer to write. So, enjoy what I've got for you now; hopefully I'll have another chapter soon. Happy holidays, everyone!  
**

* * *

Chapter 10 – Captain and Crew

_Tails' house – Angel Island, Mobius_

_13:47 local time_

"Are you sure this can work?" Tails asked for the fifth time, looking up from the monitor to talk to Nestor. The hedgehog rolled his eyes.

"My answer is the same as it was five minutes ago, Tails. This plan _will_ work _if_ everything goes according to plan."

"That's a big 'if,'" the kitsune replied. "What if something happens that we don't expect? Like if there's an extra group here; we couldn't see that spot on the tapes. The tiniest thing could mess this up."

"If something isn't expected, we adapt," Nestor said. "That's the best we can do."

Tails sighed and turned back to the screen. It displayed a computer-generated 3-D map of the space around the anomaly, complete with a visual rendering of everything they could glean from the videos about the movements of the Metarex ships. "Yeah, I guess so. Still, I think we'd better spend some more time working on this, figuring out what we should do in different situations."

"Tails, we've been at this for two hours; anything we can predict we've already thought of. We'll just have to wing it if something unexpected happens. We could plan this whole thing down to the wire, but doing that would only make us more vulnerable if circumstances change."

Tails nodded. He would rather be a bit more sure about what was going to happen, but Nestor was right: reality wasn't bound to a plan, so they couldn't be, either. One other thing worried him, though. "Nestor, we're going to be counting seconds – fractions of seconds – near the end of this thing. Are you sure _Dione_ can navigate that precisely?"

Nestor looked at him seriously. "That depends. If I were you, I wouldn't ask me that while we're doing the warp, or say anything at all, for that matter."

"Why? You afraid I'll jinx us?" Tails asked a little sarcastically.

"No, you'll... come on, let me show you something." He turned and started walking toward where _Dione_ was parked at the end of the runway. Tails followed, a little nonplussed. "Remember what I told you the other day about the warp system?" Nestor asked as they entered the cabin.

Tails thought for a moment. "It needs partial manual control. You never explained that part."

"Exactly," the hedgehog said, stopping in front of something in the wall. It was a half-cylindrical alcove positioned directly across from the elevator shaft, large enough to stand in. Nestor typed something into a panel on the inside wall, and the area seemed to come online. What looked like a claw descended from the ceiling and opened, revealing flat panels on the tips of the eight "fingers."

"This is a Directional Emulator Matrix," Nestor explained.

Inside Tails' mind, something clicked. "DEM," he said. "This is part of the Machina system."

"You're sharp, kid," Nestor commented. "Yes, this device allows me to manually control parts of _Dione_'s system, literally using my mind. Technology like this is already in use on Terrora, though most applications are still experimental."

"So, you can pilot this ship with your mind?" Tails asked, incredulous.

"Actually, no," Nestor answered. "This isn't linked into the flight controls, just to the Machina system. It's necessary, for the same reason that most proposed designs for teleporters wouldn't work." As he spoke, he started to walk out of the cabin; Tails followed. "Now, I trust you've heard of the Principle of Uncertainty?" Nestor inquired.

Tails nodded. "You can't know the exact speed or location of any particle. The more precisely you know one measurement, the less precisely you know the other. Knowing the exact location would give it an infinite range of motion, meaning it would have no true location; knowing its exact speed would put it in a completely undefined spot, making the concept of movement irrelevant."

"Textbook answer, kid," Nestor said, waving his hand impatiently. "Do you know what that means in practical terms?"

"It means no teleporter could get something to come out in just the right spot and with all its particles assembled correctly."

"That's more like it," Nestor replied. "Pinpointing an exact spot for the second rip to open is impossible with just coordinates, and time is such an abstract concept that computers can't grasp it as anything more than counting electronic pulses in their circuitry. It takes a living mind to understand 'where' and 'when' in the way that's necessary, and it takes a machine to actually rip space open. Thus, you need a way to join them."

Tails was confused. "But how can abstract understanding be any more useful than numbers in this situation? I don't quite understand what you're getting at."

Nestor sighed, then looked around the room for ideas. He snatched up something from a nearby table and held it behind him. "It's like this," he began. "This object I just picked up could be described in two ways. For one, I could drop this in an analyzer. It would weigh it and scan it on several wavelengths, then tell me its mass, volume, and density, calculate the quantities and percentages of each element and compound it contains, and list off a ridiculously long series of coordinates to tell me its shape." He brought his arm around, revealing what he was holding. "_Or_, I could look at it and know that it is a crescent wrench, used for turning nuts and bolts and occasionally a symbol of a snag in a plan. The machine would only know that if a person had told it already, and all that means is that it links a set of text with that shape and mass. If I were to take it out, knock a dent in it, and put it back in, a computer wouldn't recognize it as the same object."

"But a living mind wouldn't recognize the differences," Tails commented. "Dent or not, it's still a crescent wrench. We don't have the attention to detail that a machine does. That's one reason that Chaos Regeneration doesn't always work."

"Precisely," Nestor said. "The two controllers of the Machina system, the scanner and computer array in the hold and the person inside the DEM, cover each other's blind spots, allowing the system as a whole to know exactly what needs to go where and when it should arrive." **[A/N: Whether you understood the scientific part or not, make sure you remember that last statement, as well as the discussion that's about to happen.]**

"And if one controller doesn't do its job, the system can't function," Tails ventured.

"Which is exactly why you don't want to ask me anything during the warp," Nestor finished, bringing the conversation back to the original point. "I need a good deal of focus, but I still need to be aware of what's going on; having someone talk to me would mess that up."

Tails nodded, understanding. "One more question, though. Since the two controllers are linked, does that mean one could override the other? I mean, could you make an object come out differently than the configuration that the scanner picks up?"

Nestor laughed at this. "An excellent question; the answer is both yes and no. I _could_ alter the molecular structure of _Dione_ and her contents, but I don't have much control over how the objects turn out. It's not something I would recommend trying if you ever end up using the DEM."

"Got it," Tails said. He started to walk up the stairs into the main house. "So, how long before we launch?"

"Hey, slow down, kid!" Nestor called, running to catch up to him. "We're not heading out there just yet. I said we've done enough planning, but there's more to do before we go charging into the middle of a war zone. We won't be taking off on this mission for at least a day, maybe longer."

"Why not? _Dione_'s repaired, what else is there to do?"

"Well, for starters, I need to refill _Dione_'s ammo supplies," Nestor replied. "Then there are weapons to be switched out for heavy combat, diagnostics on the computer systems to run, instruments to synchronize and recalibrate..."

"Alright, I see your point," Tails interrupted.

"There is a problem, though," the hedgehog continued. "The pilot AI and the point-defense system are pretty basic programs, and I don't trust them to do very much. The shields will help a little, but they won't be enough if we get in too deep. And with only the two of us, it'll be hard to operate the weapons manually and still focus on flying. I'd rather have some extra people to serve as gunners."

"Sorry to interrupt," someone said unexpectedly from the right, "but I don't think it'll be just you guys on that ship." Tails and Nestor turned together to see Sonic standing in front of the door. "I would've knocked first, but the you left the door open; I didn't think you'd mind."

"I thought you weren't coming," Tails said. "You said the risks were too great. What made you change your mind?"

"I thought about it a bit," Sonic replied. "I realized that the more danger you'll be in, the more help you'll need."

"What took you so long?" Nestor interjected. "It's been nearly two hours since told you what we found out."

"I had to go find all these guys," he answered simply, swinging the door the rest of the way open as he spoke. Beyond the doorway were Knuckles, Amy, and Cream – combined with the two already inside, the original crew of the _Blue Typhoon_. Shadow was also present; his reserved demeanor made him seem out of place in this assembly.

"What are you all doing here?" Tails asked.

"You didn't think we were gonna let you do this on your own, did you?" Amy said. "Cosmo was our friend, too, you know."

"And once a captain, always a captain," Knuckles added, saluting. "We're behind you."

"Guys, you know you don't have to do this," Tails insisted.

"But we're going to," Cream replied. "You're our friend, Tails, and we won't let you do this alone."

"Thank you," Tails said sincerely; he was lucky to have people like this for friends. Nearby, Shadow turned away and crossed his arms, visibly trying to distance himself from the scene.

"Well, it seems we have no shortage of crew now," Nestor said, clapping his hands together. "Everyone who's coming, pack whatever you need. We depart for starship _Hephaestus_ in one hour."

* * *

**Sonic and the others have decided to follow Tails in his venture after all, and Shadow, for whatever reason, is also coming along. Before long, they may finally be aboard the oft-mentioned "starship _Hephaestus_." But failure in this mission could easily lead to death, both for Cosmo and for her would-be rescuers. Will they succeed, or will Sonic's earlier fears become reality?**


	12. Chapter 11: Iron in Fist and Fortress

**Well, the next chapter is here; ironically, exam week is actually helping my progress, since I get home at twelve everyday. I've managed to put off the action so far, but no longer! Read on and learn.**

* * *

Chapter 11 – Iron in Fist and Fortress **[A/N: Based on a line from Nestor near the end, and just plain sounded cool.]**

_Tails' house – Angel Island, Mobius_

_14:54 local time_

Nestor examined a circular, wall-mounted device, studying and reading a display that would have been unintelligible to him only days ago. The device told him it was only minutes until departure time, or possibly that he had another twelve hours to go. The double-cycle time system that Mobians insisted upon following confused him; why not just use a single span of hours that would cover the entire day? Still, the inconvenience was a small one, as a quick glance skyward would easily determine whether the time was _preia ig topk_ or _pusta ig topk_ (A.M. or P.M. in native terms). **[A/N: I'm putting together a glossary of Terroran words and expressions that will grow steadily as the series goes on. I can e-mail or DocX the latest edition to anyone who wants it.]** As it was, Nestor simply decided to call out, "Five minutes, everybody."

The hedgehog looked around at the people inside Tails' garage. Amy and Cream had still not arrived, a fact that had added a hint of apprehension to the bored atmosphere of the metal room. Sonic was shifting his weight between his feet, visibly uncomfortable with standing still for so long. Shadow had positioned himself in a corner and was watching the room through perpetually narrowed eyes. Tails seemed to be tapping his foot to some unheard music, the tempo of which apparently changed every few seconds. Other than the rhythmic tattoo, no sound disturbed the room.

It was because of the near-silence that everyone noticed when it was broken. A door swung shut in the house above, a very quiet sound that nevertheless garnered the attention of everyone in the room. Sonic took the excuse to run upstairs, only to return seconds later. "Cream and Amy are here."

"Well, it's about time!" said Nestor, leaping to his feet. "And with under a minute to spare, too." Making his way over to Tails, he added in an undertone, "What was the holdup, you think?"

"They don't live on the island," Tails reminded him. "It's quite a hike from down below... unless you're Sonic, anyway."

"Good point," Nestor replied. "I forgot we had to fly up here from Vanilla's house." While they were speaking, the two newcomers had reached the garage. Nestor strode over to greet them. "Good to see you decided to come along after all," he said. "You were just in the nick of time, too; we were all set to take off without you!"

"Of course we're coming," Amy replied. "You were there earlier; we're not about to let Tails do this on his own."

"I could keep him safe, if that's all you're worried about..." Nestor began hesitantly.

"We're coming," Amy repeated with a sense of finality in her voice. Nestor took the hint and left it at that. "So, when do we leave?" she asked.

"Now, if you want," Nestor replied. "With you two here, there's no reason to wait any longer. _Dione_'s ready to go."

One by one, the people in the garage boarded the gunship. Amy paused on her way in, apparently having second thoughts. "Are you sure this thing is safe?" she asked Nestor, who was standing just inside the doorway.

Nestor sighed as if his answer was one he had given many times. "One, _Dione_ is a she. Two, she's been in more tight spots than I can remember, and never once did she fail me. I trust this ship more than I would most people."

"It's not you I'm worried about," she replied. "_You_ already proved you can survive a pretty solid hit to the head."

"Are you this critical of all your pilots?"

"No, just the ones who crash."

Nestor chuckled wryly. "Ah, _i takipg utein_. You've got a sharp tongue when you want it, that's for sure. Careful not to cut yourself, eh?" He laughed again. "To answer your question, no, _Dione_'s not perfectly safe, but what can you expect in a combat situation? There's a good chance this mission will become just that; if you'd rather not take the risk, you can stay behind. I, for one, won't hold it against you."

"Don't worry, Amy," Cream spoke up from the seat next to the door. "Tails worked on this ship, remember? You trust him, right?"

Amy appeared to consider for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, I do. Besides, we've been through worse before, right?" She came the rest of the way in and took a seat to Sonic's right. The blue-furred hedgehog glanced over to see who had sat down, then quickly tried to hide the movement as he saw who it was. He gave Tails, who was sitting on his other side, a pleading look; the kitsune responded with a shrug and an apologetic expression.

* * *

Shadow was the last to board the gunship; rather than taking a seat, he simply leaned against the back wall. Nestor pressed a button on a panel, and the door slid shut with a whir of electric motors, followed by the hiss of a vacuum seal forming. "You'd better strap in," he advised the ebony-colored hedgehog, then walked toward the front of the cabin. He tapped Tails on the shoulder as he passed, then motioned to the copilot's seat. The fox got the message and moved to the spot, strapping himself into the seat as the hedgehog did.

Nestor keyed an activation sequence into the remote on his wrist, causing the flight controls to come online. "Systems check," he announced, hitting a few keys. The sound of shifting machinery filled the cabin as virtually every moving part on the ship tested its full range of motion.

"Systems check complete. No anomalies detected," said the cool electronic voice of the pilot AI. "Begin primary launch sequence?"

"No, I'll do it," Nestor replied. His hands flew across the instrument panel, getting _Dione_ ready for takeoff. Tails tapped the screen in front of him, bringing up a display of the gunship's status. To his dismay, everything was written in Terroran, a strange-looking language of triangular symbols. The same was true for the rest of the console. He resolved to watch Nestor, hoping to learn the controls from a combination of observation and inference. Alien or not, almost all ships had the same basic control arrangement.

Nestor pulled up a display on his own screen; despite the foreign text, Tails recognized it as a diagram of four jet-turbine engines. The hedgehog pressed a switch, and a sound like a metallic cough sounded from the back of the craft. Each of the images on the screen flashed red once. "_Katatr,_" he muttered. "Not enough airflow. Looks like we'll have to do this the hard way." He turned around in his seat and raised his voice so that everyone could hear. "We're having a little trouble getting the engines running, so I'll need to jump-start them. If you're not strapped in already, get that way." He faced the console again and pressed several more keys, then took hold of a pair of flightsticks. _Dione_ rocked slightly as the landing gear retracted, putting the ship's weight on its magnetic field. Nestor pushed one of the sticks forward and pulled the other one back; the two sets of turning jets engaged in opposite directions, moving the craft forward evenly.

Using short bursts from the jets, Nestor positioned _Dione_ about fifteen feet from the end of the runway. Here, he paused and addressed those in the back once again. "Ladies and gentlemen, prepare for takeoff. If any of you are prone to motion sickness, then... um... go to the back."

"What are you...?" Amy began, but her question was cut short as Nestor rammed both flightsticks forward, launching _Dione_ off the edge and into empty space. Whatever she was going to say was lost in hers and everyone else's screams as the gunship plummeted nose-first toward the forest over a thousand feet below. Tails remained silent, gripping his own controls, ready to pull up if the ground got too close.

Nestor released his hold on the flightsticks and pressed the ignition switch. The engines turned over several times, then died; the display blinked red again. "_Gota, gota, gota,_" Nestor whispered, punching the switch again and again. Tails' field of view seemed to narrow, zeroing in on the trees approaching at a speed much too fast for comfort. "Yes!" Nestor shouted as the engines finally ignited, causing the displays to flash green. The metallic sputter from the rear elongated into a high-pitched scream that intermingled with those of the passengers. Tails didn't wait for the hedgehog to take the controls; he yanked back on the flightsticks and pushed the throttle open all the way. The gunship pulled out of the free-fall just in time, snapping branches with the rear fins, then blasted skyward. The kitsune's vision clouded over, and dizziness gripped him as several extra Gs pulled on his body, causing the blood to leave his upper half. He was accustomed to the sensation by now and quickly shook off the head rush.

"Are... you... crazy!?" Sonic said between breaths, staring at Nestor. The pilot laughed.

"I'm not as scared to do that as most people; call that what you will. Level her off a bit, I need to get up," he added to the copilot beside him. Tails obliged, and the gray hedgehog stood and walked to the alcove that held the DEM. Before stepping in, he turned and addressed everyone in the cabin.

"We're about to warp, and I need my concentration for this. So, do me a favor and don't talk 'til I'm done, alright?" He made to enter, then stepped back. "One more thing: you won't remember anything between the time when the scanner passes you and when we come out. Just a heads-up." He stood within the cylindrical space and said, "Warp in ten." The ring of panels descended and rotated around his head. The short spire emerged from the nose of the gunship, and the twelve lasers shot their beams into the crystal at its tip. A flat beam of blue light swept up the length of the cabin, starting at the back and memorizing the subatomic structure of everything it touched. Tails was the last to be reached by the scanner; he shut his eyes to avoid being blinded as the azure glow passed over his face...

_Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_10:36 Alliance Standard Time_

...And opened them to the white-flecked void of outer space. He blinked. There hadn't been any sign of the Machina system's activation, though he now saw that the tip had vanished from the spire. _Dione_ was still traveling with a fair amount of speed, though with no reference points save the stars, the movement was imperceptible. The scream from the jet engines had vanished due to the sudden lack of air to power their combustion.

"So, did it work?" Nestor asked, startling them all. Tails realized that Sonic and the others might not have noticed the change and that they were silent, not out of surprise or awe, but because Nestor had told them not to talk during the warp.

"Well, we're definitely not on Mobius," Tails replied, "and our particles aren't scattered across the interstellar medium, so I'd say it worked at least halfway."

Nestor sat down and tapped a few keys. "Yep, we made it. _Hephaestus_ is about... fifteen hundred meters off to the right."

"Hey, guys, check this out!" Sonic called from one of the portholes. Everyone except Nestor ran to the starboard wall to see what had caught the hedgehog's attention. What they saw was a silver starship large and close enough to fill the small window. The craft, which could only be _Hephaestus_, consisted of a roughly cone-shaped main body with four spokes radiating out at the back. These supported a gigantic metal ring, which was enlarged at four points into cylindrical modules. Half of the back surface of each was taken up by a huge engine output; the other halves were tapered and appeared to contain functional areas of the ship. At the front, each module narrowed down to a strut that curved inward to just behind the tip of the nose. The main body and the outer portions rotated slowly in opposite directions. With nothing nearby for comparison, it was impossible to estimate the vessel's exact size, but considering the distance Nestor had told them, it had to be at least the size of the _Typhoon_.

"What do you think?" Nestor asked from the pilot's seat.

"It's impressive," Tails replied. "The radial design was a clever alternative for artificial gravity. The rotation probably saves a lot of energy on magnetic floors, though the gyroscopic effect might inhibit pitch and yaw capacity at times."

Nestor nodded. "Not to mention the ring is unarmored and completely vulnerable with the overshield turned off. I usually rely on the point-defense array, though that's next to useless again long-distance artillery fire."

"Upgrading to CEBS would fix that problem easily, and an extended-range beam cannon or a cruise missile system would give you a method of counterattack."

"True, but it would also imbalance the weight distribution, forcing me to completely recalibrate the rotational velocity in order to equalize the centrifugal force, not to mention keeping the inertial trajectory stable..." **[A/N: That's not just a pile of jargon; it does mean something, but the point here is that only Nestor, Tails, and perhaps the reader can understand it.]**

**

* * *

**

Sonic listened as the conversation became more and more difficult to keep track of. He whistled. "Those two've got one thing in common, that's for sure."

Knuckles laughed. "Calm down, Sonic, no need to get jealous."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about them," the echidna replied, jerking a thumb at the two pilots. "Chattering away over there like they've know each other for years."

Now it was Sonic's turn to laugh. "You think I'm worried that Tails is going to drift away from me?" Knuckles gave him a look that clearly meant, _You said it, not me._ "Look, I'm happy for him, alright? Nestor is probably the first person we've met that he can actually talk about that kinda stuff with. Well, maybe Marine, but I don't know what the chance is of us ever seeing her again." **[A/N: Sonic Rush Adventures, for those who don't know.]**

"Knuckles has a point, though," Amy spoke up from Sonic's other side. "We both know Tails and you are like family, and it would take a lot more than Nestor to change that. But sometimes your feelings don't listen to your thoughts."

"Hmm..." Sonic was quiet for a moment. "I guess you're right, Ames; it's just that other side of my brain, always trying to mess with my thoughts." He looked out the window again. "Why are we still floating here? Hey, Nestor!"

"...and I just don't think the central mainframe has sufficient processing power to cope with adding another system that complex..."

"NESTOR!" the three of them shouted, startling both him and Tails.

"What?"

"Are we landing anytime soon?"

"Oh, sorry, sorry," the hedgehog replied, flustered. "I just got caught up in... yeah." He returned to the pilot's seat, turned the gunship toward _Hephaestus_, and powered up the pulse engine in the rear. He opened the throttle gradually in order to accelerate without dislodging the passengers, then maneuvered behind the larger ship. The back surface of the cruiser was emblazoned with a large, black insignia. The emblem showed a graphically simplified anvil emblazoned with a triangular crest. Striking the top of the anvil was a sledgehammer (also heavily stylized) that bore two Terroran glyphs on its head. **[A/N: If you have trouble picturing that, check my profile; I have it as my avatar.]**

"Ladies and gentlemen," Nestor said, "welcome to the forge of _Hephaestus_." A large bay door split open ahead of them, parting the emblem along the gap between the hammer and anvil. Tails blinked, unaccustomed to the emerging light after the darkness of the cabin and the black void of outer space. The rift widened, and _Dione_ passed through into a massive cylindrical room. Sonic and the rest gazed around, awed by the bay's scale. It was easily two-thirds the diameter of the ship's body and approximately a hundred feet long. More striking than the size, however, was the design: rather than the top-to-bottom arrangement of most ships, everything inside seemed to radiate outward from a central point. Measuring from that point, the bay was three decks high, giving ample room to land something much larger than _Dione_.

Nestor set the gunship down just past the heavily armored bay doors. The opening slowly closed, and streams of vapor shot from vents in the floor, accompanied by a hissing sound. Once the venting gas had completely refilled the room, Nestor released the gunship's airtight seal and the door slid open. The slate-gray hedgehog hopped out; it might have been Sonic's imagination, but he seemed to take longer than usual to drop the two or so feet to the floor. The others filed out after him; again, their movement seemed slightly altered.

"Okay," Nestor said once everyone was out. "I know most of you have probably been aboard the _Typhoon_ before, but judging by its shape, you may as well have been on the ground. For _Hephaestus_, you're going to have to relearn how to get around on a ship."

"What's the difference?" Knuckles questioned. "A ship's a ship, right?"

"Here's one," Nestor replied. He crouched briefly, then jumped a clear fifteen feet into the air and alighted on _Dione_'s upper stabilizer, to the obvious surprise of everyone except Tails. "Gravity here in generated by rotation," he explained. "As such, the force is considerably weaker in the center body of the ship. Go on, test it out; see how high you can get."

"I'll take you up on that," Sonic said, then bent his knees and sprang upward. It was a powerful jump, one that would normally have taken him several feet into the air; as it was, he flew straight up, his sensation of weight decreasing as he neared the middle of the room. Then, suddenly, he was no longer rising, but was falling headfirst toward what had suddenly become the floor thirty feet below. He yelled in surprise, waving his arms wildly, then landed flat on his stomach. The impact only jarred him slightly in the lower gravity, but it still made him wince with pain as he got to his feet.

"Nice landing, Sonic!" Knuckles yelled from across the room, laughing uproariously.

"Gravitational reversal," Nestor called, also chuckling. "Make sure you plan for it next time you do that."

"Right," Sonic called back. He jumped again; this time, however, he executed a perfect two-and-a-half flip and landed neatly on both feet in front of the gray hedgehog. "Like that?" he finished.

"Yes, exactly," Nestor replied. He jumped down from _Dione_'s fin, closely followed by the other hedgehog. "Now, I run a twenty-hour ship, people," he said, his gaze sweeping across the six Mobians. "No, I don't mean you only get four hours of sleep every night; I mean _Hephaestus_ and its crew operates on a twenty-hour, Terroran daily cycle. You'll have resynchronization issues for a while, but they'll wear off. Try to get around seven hours of sleep every night." He began to pace from side to side. "As of this moment, you are passengers on my starship. Starting now, _I am your captain_, and I have partial authority over you because of that. You were all crewmembers on the _Typhoon_, I presume; on starship _Hephaestus_, your place shall be the same as it was there." Nestor stopped in place and turned to face them, his hands folded behind his back. "Maps and directions are availableat any of the computer terminals around the ship. Most of the facilities are located on the outer ring, where gravity is approximately three quarters Mobius normal. Remember, the ring spins the opposite way, so parts of the ship move in relation to each other. If you need me, call me on those same terminals; I'll be in the mechanical bay. Dismissed." **[A/N: 'Cause every now and then, even a usually comical character needs a chance to be serious.]**

The slate-colored hedgehog turned sharply and, with all the precision of a military officer, walked toward a large bay door at the back of the room. The assembled Mobians began to disperse. "I'm telling you, he's off by a few inches," Amy whispered to Tails and Sonic as she passed. Both of them chuckled.

"Come on, let's find a way outta here," Sonic said to the kitsune, who nodded.

"Captain!" Tails called; Nestor turned. "Where's the exit?"

"Oh, they're around here," Nestor replied, indicating four metal doors that ringed the back wall like the points of a compass. "Those are elevators that lead up the radial support struts; they'll take you to the ring. Be careful when you arrive; the floor moves as you're getting off."

"Thanks," Sonic replied. The two of them turned to go.

"Oh, hey," Nestor said as if he had just remembered something. "What did you think of the 'iron-fisted captain' approach? Too cold? Should I ease up next time?"

"No, no, it works," Sonic assured him. "Scared me a bit, but I guess that's what you were after."

"Definitely a way to get someone's respect, if not their friendship," Tails agreed.

"Thanks," Nestor replied. "I've been perfecting it for a while now." Sonic and Tails once again turned to leave. They stepped into one of the elevators. "Oh, don't forget, call me if there's something you don't understand!" Nestor said, his voice raised to compensate for the distance.

"Will do!" Sonic called back. Tails hit the "down" button; the door slid shut, and the small pod shot down the shaft, traveling at top speed toward the outer regions of starship _Hephaestus_.

* * *

** Nestor has returned to his starship, and Tails is now at perhaps the one place from which he can accomplish his goal. Within the next couple of days, he and the others will learn and experience the truth of what really happened at the Fall. But will they see the results of their efforts, or will this desperate mission bring all of them to an untimely end?**


	13. Chapter 12: Seventeen and Counting

**I appologize for yet another long update; I won't waste your time with an excuse, since I don't have a good one and I know you probably don't care. The chapter actually turned out a bit longer than I thought it would be, though the alternative would be a lot shorter than normal and I didn't want to give you that after such a long waiting period. One way or another, it's here now, waiting to be read, contemplated, and judged like the others. Enjoy.**

* * *

Chapter 12 – Seventeen and Counting

_Privateer cruiser vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_10:48, 38-5-467 TN (Alliance Time)_

**[A/N: A note on the Terroran time system. The first part is hours and minutes as on Earth, though it covers a single, day-long span as Nestor mentioned before. The second part, when translated, is "day-segment-cycle." One day = 20 hours; one segment = 43 days; one cycle = 8 segments = one full orbit of planet Terrora. "TN" stands for _Tinaki un Nestoagna_, "the Era of Travel," and counts the cycles since the establishment of Terrora's first off-planet colony and the beginning of what is now the Alliance.]**

"So, what do you think of what Amy said?" Sonic asked Tails as the elevator moved farther and farther from the body of the ship. Gravity seemed to stay about the same; the G-forces caused by their speed canceled out the effects of getting closer to the edge of the ship. "You know, about Nestor?"

"I don't know," the kitsune replied. "He may be a little weird, but I'd put up with a lot more than that if it meant we could get Cosmo back."

The conversation was interrupted by a sensation of increasing weight, signaling that the elevator was slowing down. The feeling stopped after a few seconds, and the door hissed open, revealing a metal hallway with about a twelve-foot ceiling. True to Nestor's word, the floor did in fact appear to be moving from left to right. They hopped out carefully; both of them stumbled due to the sudden change in direction.

"What if Cosmo had nothing to do with this, though?" Sonic asked, continuing their previous conversation. "Would you feel safe as a passenger on one of his ships?"

"Probably not," Tails admitted. He walked to a nearby terminal and pulled up a 3-D map of the cruiser. "Okay, we're right here, so to get to the guest quarters, we have to go... this way," he said, turning left and starting to walk along the hall. Though they couldn't feel any incline, the curve of the ship made it so that the floor appeared to slope upward both ahead of and behind them.

"Nestor definitely strikes me as the risk-taking type," Tails continued. "I might even go so far as to say he's careless. Don't get me wrong, _Dione_ is incredibly well-designed, but I don't know what was holding that ship together before I worked on her."

"Not to mention the way he got those jets running," Sonic added, nodding. "What convinced you to come at all?"

"One part of it was Cosmo, like I said before," the kitsune replied. "The other part... well, despite how reckless Nestor may be, I've talked with him about what I do, and he knows his stuff. If I didn't think his piloting or shipbuilding skills were..."

"As good as yours?" Sonic finished for him.

"...Yeah," Tails said. "Anyway, if I didn't trust him to build a good spacecraft and handle it well, I'd have taken the extra time to design my own and install a Machina system on it instead."

"You really do think this is gonna work, don't you?" Sonic remarked.

"Of course," Tails said. He thought of something Nestor had said earlier. "Just don't ask me again once we get out there."

_Look at him grinning like that,_ Sonic thought. _He's either completely confident or completely out of his mind._

* * *

The two walked on in silence for several more minutes. They eventually reached a double-width metal door in the wall to their right, the side that didn't appear to move in relation to the floor. Thankfully, the lettering here was in the language they used, the one Nestor called "Universal." How he had managed to write that when he couldn't read the characters, though, Tails had no idea.

There were four different phrases painted on the metal. In order from top to bottom, they read "Engine 3," "Passenger Quarters," "Recreation," and "Mess." Beside each line were one or more Terroran glyphs, sometimes with spaces between them, sometimes without. To the right of the door was a small control panel with a rectangular screen and twelve keys. Each key was labeled with a Terroran symbol, and the screen was black except for a single glowing, blue triangle.

"_Togu kebakn ansubeno?_" said a voice from a small speaker below the screen, making Sonic jump. The triangle flashed between several Terroran glyphs in quick succession.

"Uh... what?" Sonic asked.

"That must be the AI," Tails said. He walked over and spoke into a microphone just below the screen. A small lens in the wall above the terminal rotated, tracking his movement. "How do we get through here?" he asked the computer, enunciating clearly.

"No need to speak so slowly," the AI replied. The lens extended out of the wall on the end of a flexible metal cable and looked at the kitsune intently. "I understand Universal just as well, thank you." Sonic and Tails said nothing, only stared at the eye in surprise. A metal shutter snapped shut over the lens briefly. "What? Did you think I was as stupid as that autopilot on _Dione_?"

Tails blinked. "No, I just didn't expect you to have so much..."

"Personality?" the AI finished. "That would be Nestor's doing. I found that it's easier to speak to people when you recognize and understand emotions." The program's synthesized voice carried a distinctive accent; it could have been intended to sound like either gender, or neither one. **[A/N: Think the Monitor from Halo 3.]** "You may call me Helios," the AI continued. "Now, you said you wanted to enter this section of the starship?"

Tails assumed the question was for the sake of natural-sounding conversation; he knew a computer program wouldn't have forgotten that quickly. "In that case," Helios continued, "I need to check your identity. What is your name?"

"Miles Prower, but almost everyone calls me Tails."

"One moment..." Helios's eye turned slightly upward for a moment. The edges of the triangle on the screen rippled, then the shape flashed green. "Yes, that name checks out. What systems did you add to _Dione_ while you were working on her?"

"Sorry?"

"Security question," the AI explained.

"Oh, right," the kitsune replied. "I installed a CEBS apparatus, upgraded the sensory arrays..."

"That will be sufficient," Helios said. "Hold still, please." The eye examined him from several directions, the cord stretching to a good four feet at times. Afterward, it performed the same procedure on Sonic, including a security question. "That should do it," it said. "If you ever need my assistance with anything, you can access me from one of these terminals."

The eye retracted into the wall, and the large door beside the panel slid open, revealing yet another metal hallway, this one about sixty feet long. Along both sides and at the end were smaller sliding doors, eleven in total. The five on either side each had two labeled buttons beside them, while the one at the end had another full terminal for Helios.

"Quarters, you think?" Sonic asked. He pressed a button that seemed to indicate "open," and the door before him, the first one on the left, slid into the wall. Inside was a modest stateroom, consisting of nothing but an adjoining bedroom and living area and a second door that presumably led to a bathroom. Sonic took a few steps forward into the room.

"Will you be taking this room, then?" Helios asked from a panel just inside the door, startling the hedgehog again.

"Don't... do that!" he said.

"I apologize," the AI replied. "I'm afraid there's no other way for me to get your attention." The eye came out of the wall again and turned to face Sonic. "Every passenger stateroom is the same, so picking one is usually a matter of location. Most people don't care one way or another."

"Then I guess this is my room," Sonic replied. "Want the one next door, Tails?"

"Alright, why not?" the kitsune agreed. Helios's eye turned toward him and made a nodding motion.

"In that case, make yourselves at home," it replied. "After all, that's what your stateroom will become, at least until your mission at the Fall is complete."

"How do you know about that?" Sonic asked, suddenly suspicious. Helios gave an artificial laugh.

"Nestor would tell you that Helios is the all-seeing eye of the sun," the AI replied. "I simply say that... I have my ways of learning." With that, the lens returned to its spot within the wall, taking the voice of the eccentric computer program with it. **[A/N: As I said, lots of references to Greek mythology.]**

* * *

Amy was annoyed, and not without reason. Upon taking the elevator out to the ring, she had checked the directions and located the guest quarters at a spot almost entirely opposite her location. She and Cream had walked the entire quarter-mile distance and arrived at the door, only to have a little robot eye pop out of the wall, introduce itself, ask each of them a random question, and finally tell them that they had misread the map and ended up on the wrong side of the starship. As a result, they were now on the way back to a spot that was apparently right next to where they had originally come out of the elevator. And when Cream noticed the tenseness in the pink hedgehog's bearing and politely asked what was bothering her, it did little to help Amy's mood.

"Nothing's wrong," she told the rabbit, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. "I'm just a little annoyed at having to trek halfway around this ring _twice_ because I read the map wrong and Mister All-Seer back there didn't see fit to correct us until _after_ we made the first trip."

"I'm sure Helios didn't mean to cause us any trouble," Cream replied.

"It knew what happened the first time I saw Shadow!" Amy exclaimed. "I think it could've figured out where we were trying to go, especially considering this hallway has cameras every thirty feet!"

"Amy, please calm down..." Cream looked a little intimidated by her friend's shouting.

"I'm sorry," Amy said. "It's all kind of stacking together, that's all, and Nestor gets on my nerves, too. I intend to talk to him about that AI; anything with 'intelligence' in its name ought to have a bit of common sense."

"Where do you think the others are?" Cream asked, steering the conversation toward a less sensitive subject.

"Chances are Sonic and Tails have found the rooms already, and Nestor's more than likely still working on _Dione_. Knuckles is probably wandering around the ship, learning where everything is."

"What about Shadow?"

"Who knows? He could be anywhere."

* * *

Nestor dialed a command into the remote on his wrist. In response, a section of _Dione_'s hull rotated, bringing one of her attached weapons within reach. A second command caused the ring of metal holding it in place to split in two. The hedgehog took hold of the six tubes of the cluster launcher and turned ninety degrees right; the weapon dropped out of the slot and into his arms.

The hangar Nestor was using was even larger than the landing bay, though it had the same general shape and design. Catwalks ran in circles along the walls at both ends, and mobile hoists and other heavy machinery were parked in a variety of places. A half-finished fighter craft rested in a metal cage of scaffolding by the fore wall.

Nestor set the launcher down, hefted a second piece of weaponry, straightened partway, and froze. Shadow was leaning against the wide bay doors not twenty feet away, watching him silently.

"Wha... How did you get in here?" Nestor asked, shocked by the other hedgehog's sudden appearance.

"I walked in after you," he answered simply.

"Helios, why didn't you tell me he was here?" Nestor called into the room.

"Well, I assumed you knew," the AI replied, emerging from the wall next to the door. "He wasn't five feet from you; didn't you hear him?"

Nestor sighed. "Never mind, just... sorry." He stood the rest of the way up, turned around, and began to attach the weapon. "I've been meaning to ask you," he continued, "why did you decide to come with us? From what the others told me, you didn't sound like someone who would even care about this."

Shadow chuckled. "Typical; you spend most of your time alone, and people start to think you're selfish and uncaring." He walked over to stand next to Nestor. "To answer your question, I came because I wanted to finish what I started, and I figured you'd need my help."

Nestor finished turning the cannon into the slot; the metal ring resealed, locking it in place. He turned around and opened one of the metal crates stacked by _Dione_'s rear fin. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"Chaos Regeneration doesn't do much good if the person just dies again, does it?"

"I thought Sonic used Chaos Regeneration."

"I helped."

"Nobody told me that," Nestor said thoughtfully. **[A/N: I don't remember having anyone say that; if I did, take that last statement as a continuity fix.]** He took a nine-inch-long cannon slug from the box, examined it, and replaced it among its fellows. He shut the crate and moved on to a second.

"I don't think they knew," Shadow replied. "Eggman told me." **[A/N: Okay, canon-fix: When Shadow disappeared at the Fall, Eggman found him and placed him in stasis as suggested by some scenes from Sonic X. Then, **_**afterward**_**, Rouge found him in an abandoned base as seen in Sonic Heroes. He had lost his memory **_**again**_**, meaning he had no memory of any of the events of SA2B or Sonic X season three. Therefore, when Eggman told him of his past at the end of Shadow the Hedgehog (the game), he **_**also**_** explained what happened during said season. The events since then occurred as seen in their respective games. That's how I reconcile the respective plotlines of the anime and the games.]**

Nestor removed another slug from the second crate. This one was longer from end to end and carried a vicious four-tipped blade. "Now that's more like it!" Nestor said. He unscrewed a disk-shaped cap on the back. The shell was hollow and filled with a large quantity of razor-sharp chips of metal. "Scattershot rounds; those'll do nicely." He replaced the cap. "There's one thing I don't understand, though," he continued to Shadow. "I mean, none of the others really seem to like you that much, but I caught Tails glaring at you when you walked into his house. Is there some bad blood between you two?"

"Oh, _that_." Shadow leaned against the gunship's hull and looked at the wall. "Back before the Fall, when Cosmo was with them on the _Typhoon_ and I was traveling with Eggman, I got wind of something interesting in some stolen Metarex files. Apparently, she was sending them regular information signals about what was happening with Sonic and the others. I didn't understand the full situation at the time; I thought she was deliberately spying on them. It turned out she had bug equipment in her brain, but as I said, I didn't know that. Naturally, I went in to neutralize the threat."

"When you say neutralize..." Nestor began hesitantly.

"Yes, I tried to kill her," Shadow answered. "I still don't think Tails has forgiven me for that." He paused briefly, then cleared his throat and continued. "And nor should he; I made a hasty decision, and someone else damn near paid the price for it."

"Why don't you just tell Tails what you did at the Fall?" Nestor suggested as he loaded the crate into the ship. "It might not completely cancel out his grudge, but it ought to dull the edge a bit at least."

Shadow scoffed. "You know what that would sound like?" Nestor didn't answer. "Like an excuse, and a pathetic one at that. If rights could fix wrongs, there would be a lot fewer problems in the universe."

Nestor thought about replying, but there was nothing to say; Shadow was right. Instead, he simply continued equipping _Dione_, arming both the ship and himself against the battle to come.

* * *

_Privateer cruiser vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_7:24, 39-5-467 TN (Alliance Time)_

Tails and the others stood side by side in the starship's landing bay, suffering from varying degrees of exhaustion. Their symptoms were caused by what Nestor called "circadian rhythm displacement," an especially verbose way to say that their biological clocks were off due to the shorter daily cycle. The result was not unlike jet lag; most of them had been unable to get to sleep until after midnight in Terroran time and had only gotten about five hours of sleep. The only exceptions (other than Nestor himself) were Sonic, who was used to traveling, and Shadow, who never seemed to need sleep at all.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you know why we're here," Nestor was saying. "We've been postponing this long enough, and the final preparations are complete. The time has come for action, am I right?" His audience responded with varying levels of enthusiasm. "Oh dear," he said, putting a hand on his temple in mock dismay. "We might have to cancel the mission if you all are this sleepy..." He waited.

"Aye, aye, captain!" Tails almost shouted, standing at attention and saluting. The rest followed suit.

"Good. Now that I know you're all awake, Helios and I will brief you on this operation." The AI's lens extended from the wall behind him and projected an image onto the metal. It showed the same map that Tails and Nestor had used yesterday to plan the mission.

"_Dione_ will rip in here," Helios said. A green dot appeared above the disk-shaped formation of the Metarex fleet. "The estimated time to reach the target area is ten minutes. Keeping to that schedule will be essential; we will have to reach Cosmo seconds after she appears, then escape in time to avoid being trapped by enemy forces." A green line began to edge downward toward the planetoid at the center of the disk. "This is the projected flight path," the AI continued. "No doubt the Metarex forces will respond to your movements..." several red lines snaked up toward the green dot, "...and will have to be dealt with. With defensive combat and maneuvering taken into account, this path will put _Dione_ in position to complete the mission at the correct time."

"How do we get Cosmo inside once we find her?" Amy asked.

"That," Nestor replied, "is an excellent question. Helios?"

The map disappeared and was replaced by a graphic showing _Dione_ with a blue field around her. The ship moved forward, drawing closer to a stylized green stick-figure. "When _Dione_ gets close enough to the objective, the overshield will drop temporarily." The blue line disappeared, and the stick-figure moved alongside the gunship. "After that, it will reenergize and fill with air from the reserve tanks, allowing someone to exit the craft and bring her inside." A second figure did so, and the ship's animated engine fired, blasting it offscreen. "Once that's done, _Dione_ will build up speed, rip out, and return here." The gunship returned to the screen, and a stylized image of _Hephaestus_ appeared as well. "Are there any questions?"

Cream raised her hand. "What happens if someone shoots at us while the shield is down?"

"Another great question," Nestor replied. "Unfortunately, there's no good answer. If _Dione_ takes a hit with no shielding, or if the shield is disrupted with someone outside the ship, this entire mission could be compromised. We'll just have to make sure there's no one nearby during that time."

"Another question," Tails said. "What about weaponry?"

"What indeed?" was Nestor's reply. While Helios shut off the projector and returned to the wall, the hedgehog indicated a wide barrel on _Dione_'s side with a lens at the end. "Artillery-class lasers," he explained. "Small by the standards of military battleships, but more than enough to down smaller craft. And for something bigger..." He typed in a command, causing the ring of hull to rotate and expose a second weapon. The barrel of this one was longer and narrower and lacked the lens. "Magnetic coilguns, capable of launching projectiles at four times the speed of sound. I've equipped them with armor-piercing Scattershot rounds; the shells break open once they hit and rip through whatever's inside. A single shot to an important area can cripple a cruiser. Together, these two systems should be enough to cut through the Metarex line." A second command caused the door of the gunship to slide open. "That's about all there is to explain. Anyone who's not ready, this is your last chance to speak up before we launch."

There was no reply. "Pardon me, captain," Helios spoke up, "but I think that, if any of them were going to have a change of heart, he or she would have done so long before now."

"Like when you threw _Dione_ off the edge of the island," Knuckles said.

"Or when you told us we would have to drop our shields right in the center of the combat zone," Amy added.

"We've all made our decisions, Nestor," Tails said. "There's no way we're quitting this."

Nestor nodded, appearing satisfied. "That's good to know. But just to make sure: are you all ready!?"

"Sir, yes sir!" was the collective reply.

* * *

"Glad to hear it," Nestor said. "Load up, everyone." As they boarded the gunship, he turned to the AI's lens. "You too, Helios."

The eye drew back a bit as if surprised. "You're... taking me with you?"

"Of course," Nestor replied. "I can't remember the flight path or do the calculations by myself, and the autopilot wouldn't be able to adjust if we ran into a snag."

"Aye, aye, captain!" the AI said, sounding as close to elated as its synthesized voice could get. The eye retracted into the wall, and a moment later, Helios's external "body" flew down from somewhere on the other side of the room. The small craft was powered by a large, caged-in rotor that held it aloft and three smaller ones that allowed it to maneuver. Attached to the central unit was the same lens that was on all of the AI's terminals, along with enlarged portions that appeared to contain other equipment.

"You do realize I will have to open the bay doors remotely once we return," Helios said. "To give me time to establish a link and send the signal, you will need to rip in a fair distance from here."

"I'll do my best," Nestor replied. He boarded the gunship along with the AI and stood inside the DEM slot. Tails was already in the copilot's seat; the kitsune smiled and gave a thumbs-up sign, which Nestor returned. "All aboard, prepare for takeoff," he said. Tails eased _Dione_ off the deck and guided it through the slowly opening doors. "Warp in ten," Nestor said. The gunship accelerated as Helios took partial control in place of the autopilot. The scanner beam activated, the twelve lasers fired, and the gunship vanished into the space within space.

* * *

**I assume you all know what's coming, so I say no more.**


	14. Chapter 13: Eye of the Storm

**I'm gonna keep this concise, lest I accidentally reveal part of the plot. One, this update was short because I've had this chapter planned for a while, and, two, I daresay I'm fairly proud of how it turned out. I made sure all the songs mentioned are on Youtube in case you want to pull them up in a second window; I listened to them while I wrote and timed the events to the music. All I have to say is... sit back and enjoy the ride.**

* * *

Chapter 13 – Eye of the Storm

_Privateer gunship vessel _Dione_ – Forestation military zone, galactic core vicinity_

_11:51, 23-2-464 (Alliance Time)_

**[Music: "Farthest Outpost" - Halo 3 Original Soundtrack]**

Light flared in the dark emptiness of outer space. A tiny point of radiance quickly expanded into a ring through which a darkness even more complete than the star-flecked backdrop could be seen. An orange gunship shot through the hole in space, which then closed, leaving nothing to indicate that the craft hadn't simply flown in the normal way.

_Dione_'s pilot, of course, didn't see any of this; what he and the rest of the crew saw was the serene, almost majestic image of hundreds of small points of silver and gold spiraling slowly around some invisible point. The lack of sound in space gave the illusion of calmness, but the telltale glowing streaks of laser fire testified to the battle going on before them. The anomaly at the center was black and therefore invisible to the naked eye. However, the ship's ultraviolet sensors painted a glow that rivaled that of the nearby galactic core. The _Typhoon_'s path was clearly visible, a swath of emptiness cut through the otherwise pristine Metarex formation. Just across from there: that was where they needed to be.

Nestor took his place in the pilot's seat and pushed the throttle open, accelerating his gunship forward. At the same time, he oriented himself mentally so that the circular formation was the floor and _Dione_ was diving toward it. Shadow stood at the rear of the cabin, a glowing blue Chaos Emerald in his right hand. Helios flew behind Tails and latched onto the headrest with a pair of short, three-fingered arms. The kitsune took his hands off the controls momentarily to crack his knuckles, loosening the joints. The rest of the crew seated themselves at the gun controls, ready for whatever might be thrown at them. Nestor snapped his goggles down over his eyes, flexed his fingers, and gripped the flightsticks. "Let's do this."

As _Dione_ drew nearer to the fleet before her, the crew were able to make out details of the formation. A defensive perimeter had been established around the anomaly, perfectly positioned to be a huge obstacle in the mission's path. "We won't be able to let our shields down safely with those ships in place," Helios reminded Nestor.

"Then let's persuade 'em to move," the pilot replied. He swung _Dione_'s nose ninety degrees left, exposing her side to the enemy ships. "Starboard line, broadside!" Three laser blasts and a Scattershot lanced from the gunship's cannons. One of the Metarex ships jerked out of position and collided with a second, engulfing both in a vibrant orange explosion. _That oughta get their attention,_ Nestor thought, returning his ship to her prior alignment.

Just as expected, a contingent of four silver ships detached itself from the formation and throttled upward to meet them. "Knuckles, get below and reload the coilguns as they're fired," Nestor said. "Shadow, take his place." With no sound outside the cabin to drown him out, there was no need to raise his voice. "Tails, take over as pilot; I've got something special planned," he added in an undertone. The kitsune complied, and Nestor keyed in a command that brought up a second set of onscreen controls to replace those for flight. He took hold of the flightsticks again and prepared for the approaching enemies to enter his range.

* * *

**[Music: "Three Gates" - Halo 3 Original Soundtrack]**

Tails was bracing himself on many levels. It had been less than a shipboard day since he and Nestor had planned this mission, but here, now, it felt as if months of effort were finally coming together. It felt as if he had been planning the mission ever since he was last at the Fall; he just hadn't known it until Nestor entered the mix. Now was the time for action, to fight and maneuver his way through the enemy hordes and claim the fruits of victory.

He yanked his wandering mind back to the present; the first of those hordes was coming at them. The four Metarex interceptors split, coming in on four different vectors. One went bow-to-bow with _Dione_ while the other three curved around to attack from the sides and below. Tails watched as the one to the left went down to well-placed laser shot, and turned back to the front just in time to see the charging ship's face crumple inward from the force of two basic metal slugs from some unmentioned third weapon. He yanked back on the flightsticks and "jumped" the gunship over the wreck just as the other two vessels hurtled past on either side. The shield indicator pulsed red and slowly recharged. Nestor turned to watch the two craft, shock etched on his face.

"_Marauders!?_" he exclaimed. "The Metarex are _Marauders_?"

Tails ignored him and kept an eye on the two remaining interceptors. One kept going on an uncontrolled course, its bridge ravaged by two Scattershot rounds; the other looped up and moved in for a second pass. "She's coming back around!" the kitsune called. "Get ready to fire again!"

* * *

Unknown to anyone aboard the gunship, however, the interceptors had carried more than just weapons into battle. As one of the ships passed below the orange craft, a tiny device no bigger than a tennis ball leaped from its hull, passed straight through a shield weakened by laser fire, and landed on _Dione_'s surface. The magnetized legs of the diminutive Metarex machine adhered instantly to the metal. The probe's triangular, insectoid head rotated, scanning the topography of what was, to it, a massive landscape. Its crystalline eyes spotted a heat source; it skittered on spider-like legs toward the bright infrared glow.

Upon topping a metal ridge, the tiny robot was nearly overloaded by the sudden increase in energy. It put information buffers in place and looked down into the chasm before it. Within, the AI's simple programming buzzed a few cycles with something like delight. The machine crawled down the sloping wall toward the point of greatest temperature, moving as close as its self-preservation algorithms allowed, until the metal skin glowed red-hot. It then drilled a few inches into the hull, folded up its limbs, and powered down, ready to reboot in a few hours. That is, assuming the gunship was still active and in one piece by then.

* * *

_Metarex cruiser vessel _Eagle Eye_ – Forestation military zone, galactic core vicinity_

A few hundred miles out, a Metarex warship was being used as an improvised remote-sensing station. Long-range radar and zoom cameras watched the battle intently, and the homing trackers were reading the robot's signal loud and clear. "Tracer probe is in place," said a blue drone's synthesized voice.

"Well done," came a reply that sounded much less artificial. "See that it isn't dislodged; that little gunship might be important to keep track of."

"Yes, sir," the drone replied, and turned back to its console.

The owner of the second voice nodded, pleased as always with the lower classes' efficiency. Such devotion and obedience could only be found in machines.

* * *

_Privateer gunship vessel _Dione_ – Forestation military zone, galactic core vicinity_

"Fire port!" Nestor cried. Four laser blasts answered, clotheslining the Metarex ship as it sailed past on the left and causing it to explode brilliantly in front of them. "That's it!" he yelled triumphantly, pumping his fist. "Let's get in there to meet the next wave."

_Dione_ accelerated to her full (and considerable) impulse speed, nose aimed right at the anomaly center. Before them, the Metarex fleet cloistered in around it, forming a defensive blockade. A second group made for them, this time much larger and slower than before. Nestor counted about a dozen interceptors, though more might have been hiding behind the initial line. Regardless of that possibility, the pilot was confident that they could take them out before his ship even came under fire.

"Gunners, double broadside!" he called. Although there were only two people seated on each side of the gunship, the terminals were set up so that each gunner controlled both their own and the one across from them. As a result, when Tails threw _Dione_ into a clockwise rotation, exposing both sides in quick succession, not one, but two volleys of gunfire flashed from the cannons.

At least half a dozen ships fell to the barrage, leaving six at the front and an uncertain number behind them. As Tails corrected the gunship's flight path, Nestor began charging his own personal weapon: a burst-auto railgun hidden in the nose. He manipulated the flightsticks and clicked the firing triggers six times, painting a red targeting reticle onto each of the lead ships. He touched an icon on the screen before him, felt six thumps as the weapon fired, and watched another half-dozen ship fall less than a hundred yards from the bow. An orange haze obscured his view temporarily, and pieces of metal bombarded the gunship's shields.

His satisfaction soon turned to alarm as something else emerged from the debris, brake jets flaring. What he had originally taken to be another line of interceptors was in fact a fully-fledged, gold-armored Metarex cruiser, complete with a laser battery and dual missile banks. Four rockets blasted from the slots, and both pilots knew there was no time to dodge, only to slam the brakes and avert a collision. The two ships stopped dead in space, and the missiles detonated two feet in front of _Dione_'s canopy, reducing the shields to nothing. With victory looming and no charge yet in the railgun, the cruiser's cannons glowed in preparation for an executional stroke.

Just then, a flash of light momentarily blinded the crew, and suddenly Shadow was hovering in front of the gunship, his body cloaked in a golden aura. He swiped his left hand across his body, and a bolt of energy pierced through the laser battery, destroying it. Before either ship had time to react, the glow intensified, and the hedgehog shot forward, punching straight through the ship and exiting out the tip of the stern. The cruiser listed to port, started to roll, and exploded spectacularly before the awe-struck eyes of _Dione_'s crew. Shadow looped back around, taking out three more interceptors along the way, and vanished in a second flash. He reappeared at the back of the cabin and immediately dropped to one knee. "Keep going," he growled, then stood and snapped his wristbands back into place. Tails was happy to oblige, and the gunship accelerated forward once more. Nestor spotted a gap in the blockade: the way was clear and the goal was in sight.

"Ninety seconds!" Helios alerted them just as the Sonic Driver fired, sending their entire view into blinding whiteness. Then a shutter slammed down and the light was hidden from view.

* * *

**[Music: "One Final Effort (Extended)" - Halo 3 Original Soundtrack]**

Tails blinked, trying to clear his vision. As the cabin came back into focus, he saw that the canopy was covered by a screen that showed a vague, amorphous image of what was going on before it. He remembered crafting this device: it was based on a combination of silhouettes cast by ships in the way of the light and reflections from those off to one side. It was a last resort when all other sensors became next to useless, which was exactly what happened once the blast from the Sonic Driver struck home. It was far from perfect, but at least they had some idea of their surroundings. Right now, it was showing him a fast-approaching enemy blockade.

"Tails, snap out of it!" Nestor said, jolting the kitsune back to the here-and-now. "Come on, don't zone out now, we're almost to Cosmo!" The last word brought him fully back to his senses. He repeated the name to himself: _Cosmo._ He pushed the throttle to full and charged the Metarex line, throwing all caution to the wind. _Cosmo. _The gunners opened up on both sides, tracking anything that tried to flank them and reducing it to rubble. Nestor's railgun downed targets as they came, keeping a narrow gap open in the blockade. _Cosmo._

Tails accelerated forward, pushing Dione's speed to her limits. The hole grew in his vision, then suddenly constricted as the frontal fire ceased. "More ammo, hurry!" Nestor called into the mike.

"We're all out!" Knuckles replied in kind.

"_KETO!?"_ Nestor yelled. He stared to the front in sudden horror. _"Gibadnak un kobukra ansubena..."_

"Forty-five seconds," Helios warned.

_Cosmo._ Without thinking, Tails yanked the gunship sideways and killed the engine. "Fire at will!" he shouted. The crew soon realized his intentions, and a barrage of shot roared from both sides, simultaneously providing cover fire and clearing the path ahead. The hole kept coming until it was nearly on top of them. _Cosmo_. The kitsune yanked the flightsticks again, passing through the gap stern-first and once more coming to rest in a broadside drift, this time with the starboard wall facing the center. The fire resumed, but only one side was really necessary; they now had a clear line to the destination point.

"Ten seconds! Sonic and Shadow just used Chaos Regeneration!"

_Shadow?_

_Cosmo._

For Tails in that instant, time seemed to slow. He abandoned his seat and ran down the length of the cabin toward the door. Halfway along he took to the air, flew the rest of the way, and landed, seemingly a long time later. Up front, Amy took his place. "Drop the shield, now," he told Helios, who was hovering by the door.

"But Tails, we're still under enemy..." the AI began.

"_Do it!"_ His tone and his expression left no doubt in the AI's programming about his determination.

"...Aye, aye," it said. After a few seconds, it spoke again. "Shield is back in place, oxygen being pumped..."

Tails didn't wait for the sentence to conclude; he smacked the "open" button and was carried out by a rush of air. He spun his tails, taking control of his flight, then turned toward the nose. Immediately he regretted it; Amy had straightened course after he left, and he ended up looked right at the anomaly. It seared the kitsune's eyes with the heat of twenty suns; he clapped his hand over his face, completely blinded. _Cosmo. _He made contact with the hull and felt his way along it, searching blindly for the person he hoped, he _knew_, was in there. The void just inches above him would normally have scared him out of his wits, but his caution had long since been left behind for this mission.

Something brushed against him; he reached out wildly, and his hand made contact with the electron shield. _Cosmo. _He tried again, and this time he caught hold of someone's wrist. Without hesitation, he took off and flew back in the direction of the door. Just as he did, however, a long-range laser shot from behind sideswiped the gunship, raking along the shielding. The protective sheath cracked: only a tiny hole, but it was enough.

A rush of air seemed to grab hold of the kitsune and hurl him toward _Dione_'s aft portion. He flailed wildly, and his free hand found something hard and metallic; he clung to it, given strength by one word: _Cosmo._ A second blast enlarged the hole and increased the force of the current, but still he held on, refusing to let go with either hand. With a tremendous effort of will, he pulled himself up and started to climb his way along the gunship's hull, trying with all his might to get to the door.

Amy chose that moment to slam the brakes, just barely avoiding a full salvo of missiles. She also managed to dislodge Tails; the kitsune flew forward, slammed against one of the gun barrels, and was promptly hurled back the other way as _Dione_ accelerated yet again. He landed on the rear stabilizer and almost lost consciousness, but kept himself together. _Cosmo_. He slipped off, felt the heat of the engine, and knew it was all over. He had failed. Then someone caught his free arm and pulled, gravity reasserted itself, and he fell to the floor. A bulkhead slammed behind him.

"Gun it, now!" he heard Nestor shout. The gunship shot forward like an arrow, sending him and everyone else not strapped in flying against the back wall. As his vision cleared, he saw Nestor stand and enter the DEM slot. Yellow laser blasts flew all around; missile impacts shook _Dione_ to her core. A huge explosion hit under the exhaust, sending the gunship spinning end-over-end. The scanner activated, and Tails squeezed his eyes shut.

There was an instant of quiet, a horrible wrenching sound followed by a collosal impact, then stillness. Tails felt the world fading out. He was vaguely aware of someone calling, "Is everyone alright?" A pause, then, from beside him: "Better than alright. We did it." Those words were enough. The kitsune barely had time to think one last thought before his mind slipped away: _Cosmo... Cosmo... Cosmo..._

* * *

**I don't think any comment is really necessary here; it's all in that last paragraph. I'm anxious to hear everyone's opinions, so I'm going do something odd and straight-up ask for reviews. Compliment, criticism, random comments... all are welcome. Well, until next time, I guess.**


	15. Chapter 14: Under the Glass

**Yes, I realize I took my time a bit getting this chapter written.**

**Okay, so I let it drag on for over two weeks. But it's here now, and I hope all of you who are waiting for answers like it. Nothing more to see here, so on with the show.  
**

* * *

Chapter 14 – Under the Glass

_Landing bay, privateer cruiser vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_7:31, 39-5-467 TN (Alliance Time)_

**[A/N: In case you haven't been doing so before, be sure to check the time every time it's shown. Events won't necessarily be occurring in chronological order from now on.]**

"Look out!" Cream cried as the metal beside _Hephaestus_'s bay doors spun into view. Amy yanked _Dione_'s nose up, but too late; the gunship fishtailed and bounced twice inside the narrow opening, then nosed down as one of the rear fins caught. Those inside heard a screech of rending metal through the floor. An instant later, the orange craft slammed into the deck, bounced once, and came to a sliding stop with half of its landing gear extended. The lights died, and amber emergency strips lit up in their place.

"Is everyone alright?" Nestor called, struggling to get to his feet on _Dione_'s tilted floor. He looked around the cabin at the people who had been thrown to the ground by the crash-landing.

"Better than alright," Sonic said from near the back. The hedgehog was holding a hand to the back of his head as if in pain. Despite this, he was grinning. "We did it." He jerked his head to the left. Nestor looked and saw Tails first, then the person next to him. _So, this is who he was after_, he thought. _Cosmo._

The alien girl couldn't have been much older than eight or nine, Tails' age; Nestor was surprised by this, though he realized he should have expected as much. The second impression he got was plants: her dress was apparently fashioned to resemble flower petals, and she wore some kind of headdress with unopened rosebuds and long leaves that hung down like hair. No, wait a minute – that last part wasn't an article of clothing. After a few seconds, Nestor discerned what looked like roots snaking down from the base of the plant into her head. The leaves and flowers were a part of her body. _Well, this explains the seed thing, at least,_ Nestor mused.

At that point, the ship rocked suddenly to the left, causing Nestor to almost lose his balance again. Knuckles, who had just managed to climb to the upper deck, promptly fell back into the elevator shaft. He dug the spikes on his fists into the wall, halting the drop. "Helios!" he shouted.

"My apologies!" the little AI replied. "I was simply trying to extend our starboard landing gear so that you all might disembark more easily."

"That's fine, just _warn_ us next time," Nestor said. The floor moved again, more slowly this time, then dropped suddenly and halted with a heavy thud as the gunship righted itself. The door slid open. Nestor shifted his focus to the rest of the crew. "Okay, who's still conscious? Sound off." A chorus of incoherent voices answered. "Good. If you can stand, get up; if you can walk, get out of the ship; if you can carry something, grab someone who's passed out." He paused, then added, "Sonic, follow Helios to medical."

"I'm okay," the other hedgehog insisted. He turned Tails' limp body over and held a finger to his wrist. "Pulse is good." He put a hand in front of the kitsune's mouth. "Breathing, too." He started to shift him, but the fox suddenly tensed and grunted through his semiconscious state.

Nestor looked around, and he noticed a purple patch spreading slowly across Tails' ribcage. "Oh my... Sonic, he needs medical, now!"

The blue hedgehog picked the kitsune up without hesitation. "Where to?" he asked simply.

"Off the floor-level hallway behind the hangar," Nestor replied. "The door's labeled with..." He didn't have time to finish, however, as Sonic was already gone after the first sentence, leaving nothing but a small gust of air in his wake. "How's Cosmo doing?" Nestor asked Amy, who had knelt down to check her vitals. The other hedgehog gave a low whistle.

"Not good," she said. "Pulse is pretty faint, and I can't tell if she's breathing or not."

"_Katatr_," Nestor swore. "She appeared in vacuum, and her lungs never started up properly. We'll have to try and get them moving."

"Let me," Shadow spoke up. He knelt as well; Amy moved out of his way, watching curiously. He put his right hand on Cosmo's chest and murmured something inaudible. The Chaos Emerald in his left hand glowed briefly, and an identical blue light flashed from under his palm. Cosmo's body jerked; her eyes snapped open, and she gasped. After a few seconds, her eyes fell shut and her rapid breathing slowed to a gentler rise and fall.

Shadow stood. "She'll be okay," he said tersely, then turned and walked out without another word. Cream, Amy, and Knuckles stared after him.

"What was that?" the echidna questioned.

"Finishing what he started," Nestor replied.

"But he just saved her life, he wasn't trying to kill her!" Amy protested.

"Calm down, _Ribakalug_, that's not what I'm talking about," Nestor said, holding up a hand. "I guess Sonic never told you: when he used Chaos Regeneration at the Fall, Shadow helped."

There was silence for a few seconds. "Well, that explains a lot," Cream finally said.

"Shadow's been kinda weird ever since the Black Arms," Knuckles commented. "Seems like he cares more about morals than he did before. I think someone told him what he did before he lost his memory."

"You think we could discuss this later?" Amy interjected. "We have to get Cosmo to medical."

"I'll do it," the echidna replied. He took the Seedrian and jogged off in the direction Sonic had gone a moment before.

Nestor turned to the robot still hovering beside his shoulder. "Helios, get back in the ship and put those two under glass, now. They both need it, Tails especially."

"Aye, captain," the AI replied, and flew off.

"Cream, _Ribakalug_, you're free to go," Nestor continued, turning to the remainder of them. "Get some rest if you want; stars know you've earned it."

"What is that you keep calling me?" Amy asked.

"What, _Ribakalug_? That's just a... nickname? Alias? Anyway, it's one thing people might call you if you stayed on Terrora for a while. We name the person, not what the parents originally thought about the person."

"What's it mean?"

"It's not an insult, don't worry," Nestor assured her. "Not entirely, anyway. Now go and get some sleep, both of you. That's an order. Dismissed." He saluted, and Amy and Cream returned the gesture. The three of them exited the gunship and the landing bay, leaving the room empty and silent.

_

* * *

_

_Medical bay, privateer cruiser vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_17:04, 39-5-467 TN (Alliance Time)_

_Flames, dancing, flickering flames, raced by below Tails as he piloted his jet over the canopy of a burning forest. Through the smoke, he caught sight of the source of the fire: an armored machine that stood a good twenty feet over the tallest treetops. The kitsune banked in and unleashed a salvo of missiles; heat and shrapnel engulfed his foe as the jet shot past overhead._

_But the explosions didn't faze the machine any more than the flames it had created. A razor-sharp claw shot out, impaled the plane through the back of the fuselage, and started to tow it in. Tails ejected out of the canopy and was immediately caught by a second claw. He struggled but was unable to free himself, nor to do anything as the Metarex, the aptly-named "Reaper of Worlds," smashed the jet against the ground, consuming it and the passenger inside in a ball of orange fire..._

_Then his surroundings shifted. The flames vanished, but the stars above remained, bending around until they surrounded him from all sides. Then he was suddenly at the helm of the _Typhoon_ with the rest of the ship's crew in their places at the bridge; none of them spoke; they seemed vague, indistinct. _

_Something slammed into the hull, and Tails caught a glimpse of a black dreadnought outside the canopy, orb-like eyes glaring red. A ring around its face glowed yellow, and lasers tore into the _Typhoon_. Tails' ship ripped apart, and the world spun crazily as he plummeted through space into the lightless maw of a black hole..._

_The spinning suddenly stopped, and the hole became a black planetoid with a pure white, glowing tree atop it. Tails was alone on the bridge with his hand on the weapon controls. He felt his finger press the trigger, and watched in horror as two intertwining beams of light lanced from the _Typhoon_'s cannon. His vision went white..._

_...Then faded to black. The kitsune stood on nothing in the middle of infinity. Cosmo stood across from him. She was taller, the buds on her head had opened, and her body was insubstantial and glowed faintly. A voice, low and metallic, that seemed to come from the very space around them: "You cannot win... for you have already lost." The angelic figure burst into glittering trails of vapor; a flame-cloaked dragon's head lunged out of the darkness where she had been, razor jaws open to devour its prey. Inside was the same crimson fire that had destroyed Tails' planet, the same crushing blackness that had pulled him down into oblivion. He tried to shut his eyes, but could not stop the terrifying vision. The dragon snapped its mouth shut, and Tails felt a dozen fangs pierce his body. They burned like white-hot daggers, yet were somehow icy cold..._

Tails shot straight up in bed. Or rather, he would have, had he been in a bed. As it was, he only made it a few inches before his head knocked against glass and he fell back. Someone was screaming; he realized after an instant that it was him. He stopped, inhaled a breath, and coughed; the air was so heavy with moisture that it felt like being underwater. It was hot, too, and strangely calming.

The kitsune still felt a ghostly semblance of pain where the monster had bitten him. His hands found the spots where its teeth had lacerated his body: nothing. As the fog of sleep cleared, Tails realized he was in some kind of enclosed space; the newly forming lump on his head was evidence of the mist-coated glass inches in front of his face. Even after the false pain from the nightmare faded, his body still hurt all over. He felt like he had been forced to scale a cliff, then been pushed off again once he reached the top.

"Tails?" said Nestor's voice from just beside his head, making him jump. A gray and white mass appeared on the other side of the glass, its outline obscured by the condensation. The voice sounded through the speaker again: "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," he groaned, then winced as a line of pain shot across his ribcage. He reached upward – noting as he did the IV plugged into his wrist – and wiped away the accumulated moisture. Nestor's face came into clear focus.

"He's awake?" said another voice from farther away. There were footsteps, and Sonic's face appeared beside Nestor's. "Tails, you're alright! How you doin' in there, bro?"

"Okay, I guess," Tails replied, making his chest burn again for a second. "Hurts, though." He suddenly remembered the mission, though not yet clearly. "What happened?" he asked.

"You blacked out after we got back," Sonic said. "You were pretty beat up, so we brought you in here."

"You're in a homeostasis pod now," Nestor added. "Medical bay. The pod simulates your body's internal conditions, allowing it to devote more energy to healing."

"The IV in your arm provides your body with all the sustenance it needs, as well as any necessary medication," Helios's voice added unexpectedly. "You can remain in the pod indefinitely, though you will have to rebuild muscle mass after extended periods." A schematic showing Tails' skeletal structure popped up on the glass. "You have fractures in two of your ribs, most likely from when you were thrown forward into one of _Dione_'s port cannons. There are also numerous small bruises, minor burns from radiation, and more scratches than I'd care to count. All in all, and with medications and supplements taken into account, your more serious injuries should be healed in approximately four shipboard days. However, the ribs will take longer to regain their full strength, but that can take place outside the pod."

Tails only half-listened to the AI's monologue; the adrenaline rush from the nightmare had worn off, and the pod's climate-controlled atmosphere was making him drowsy. "Cosmo?" he asked simply. The two hedgehogs exchanged worried-looking glances. "Is she okay?" he asked, suddenly nervous.

"Well..." Nestor began hesitantly. "See, we had some trouble – all unavoidable, you must understand, we were in a combat situation – and... well, vacuum is a lot more dangerous than just not being able to breath, and..."

"Is she okay?" Tails repeated slowly.

"I... I think so," Nestor replied. "Neither I nor Helios is familiar with her species' physiology, so we have no way to know what "normal" vitals are, but Shadow got her breathing, and she seems stable enough."

Relief swept over Tails at those words; he had been afraid of far worse. He shut his eyes and inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the pod's warm, oxygen-rich air. "You were awesome out there, Tails," Sonic spoke up. "You should've seen yourself."

"Aw, come on," Tails replied without opening his eyes. "You probably could've done just as well yourself."

Nestor laughed. "Actually, he'd probably be dead. If you couldn't fly, you and Cosmo would be, too. The both of you about fell into the booster exhaust."

"Not to mention when the shield was breached," Helios added. "You managed to support both your own and Cosmo's weight with one hand. With acceleration G-forces taken into consideration, that weight was the equivalent of approximately seventy-nine kilograms in Mobius gravity. That is, nearly four times your own weight."

"I can't take all the credit," Tails insisted. "Cosmo and I would be cinders right now if Sonic hadn't grabbed us, Amy's piloting is probably the only reason _Dione_'s not floating out there in a thousand pieces, and Nestor got us back here safely."

"Barely," Sonic muttered. "We lost a rear fin on the way in. The _same_ one that got torn off when he first crashed on Mobius, by the way."

"Hey, let's see you do better!" Nestor shot back, bristling. "I doubt you could get off with just a fin!"

"Guys, guys, calm down," Tails interrupted. "We made it back, we all did our part, and everyone's okay. That's all that matters right now."

"I have to ask, though," Nestor said. "What the _hell_ were you thinking, jumping out into deep space like that? I mean, I know that was part of the plan, but you were _supposed_ to have a tether on first."

Tails started to answer, but Sonic beat him to it. "Cosmo was bouncing around out there like crazy, though. If he'd taken the time to tie himself to the ship, she could've gotten injured."

The kitsune nodded. "I knew beforehand there wouldn't be time if we were even a few seconds off. But it doesn't make a difference, because it worked. It's like you said, Nestor: going without a plan gives us room to adapt." Tails shut his eyes again. "Now, this thing's making me sleepy; I think I'll get some rest like Helios told me to." He laid his head back and succumbed to the calming pod air, slowly drifting off into sleep once more.

* * *

_Location/Time Data Unavailable_

Confused images and sounds flashed through Cosmo's mind. In her semiconscious state, her senses seemed to fade in and out, blurring together into incoherent jumbles of impressions.

_Intense heat, then a sudden metallic coldness on the side of her face... "Gun it, now!..." Light flashing across her closed eyelids... "Look out!..." An intense impact. Silence._

"_Okay, who's still conscious? Sound off..." "Oh my... Sonic, he needs medical, now!..." "_Katatr_, she appeared in vacuum..." All the same unfamiliar voice._

_A jolt of energy that made every muscle in her body convulse... Light flooding her vision, making it impossible to see more than the silhouettes of those around her... Darkness closing back in from every side, blotting out her contact with the world..._

* * *

_Medical bay, privateer cruiser vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_7:52, 39-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

Warmth. Humidity. The steady beeping of a machine. An occasional gentle hiss from an air exchange vent. A slight sting in her left wrist. Not the information one normally expects from one's senses when he or she first wakes up. But then again, nothing in Cosmo's recent memory could exactly be called "normal." The last thing she remembered clearly was being blinded by the light of the Sonic Driver and feeling Dark Oak's mental scream of rage just before the blast struck home.

Cosmo opened her eyes, but he couldn't see anything except a strange gray-white fog. After blinking a few times to clear her vision, she realized that the haze was actually a few inches in front of her face rather than in her eyes. She turned her head to the left and saw the metal side of the pod, followed by her own arm and a plastic tube that fed into it. Something clicked, and everything she had experienced in the past fifteen or so seconds made sense: she was in a sickbay.

She put her hand on the glass before her and pushed; no reaction. "Hello?" she called softly, knocking on the inside of the pod. "Is anyone there?"

"Hello, welcome back," came the reply from just beside her head. "I am glad to see you conscious; we were afraid you might have sustained more serious injury."

"Who's there?" Cosmo asked, looking around. "Where are you?"

"Oh, I apologize," the voice said. "It seems I neglected to introduce myself. I am a version four point six Legacy-class artificial intelligence entity, designation 'Helios.' I am currently assigned to the Concentric-class cruiser vessel _Hephaestus_, privately registered to Nestor Kairos." **[A/N: I am C-3PO, human-cyborg rela- *shot*]** The AI paused, then added: "For the purpose of this conversation, I am a few inches to the left of your head, inside the small speaker on the wall."

Cosmo looked; sure enough, a cluster of holes punched into the metal siding betrayed the origin of the voice. "What's going on?" she asked the AI that called itself Helios. "I... I don't understand..." _I should be dead._

"Perhaps I should start at the beginning," the AI replied. "The current date is four hundred sixty-seven cycles, five segments, and thirty-nine days into the Era of Travel, measuring by the standard calendar of the Orionis Alliance of Planets. Three cycles, three segments, and sixteen days ago, you were caught in the blast of the cruiser vessel _Blue Typhoon_'s main weapon, a second-class projectile-based heavy energy cannon. Your body was incinerated in under a second."

"Am I dead, then?"

"No, not anymore," Helios answered. "Approximately thirty-nine seconds after the cannon fired, Sonic and Shadow induced a Chaos Regeneration and were able to reconstruct your body. Twenty-four seconds later you were brought aboard the gunship vessel _Dione_ and taken here to recover."

"How long have I been in here?"

"Twenty-three minutes."

Cosmo frowned; that couldn't be right. "How long is a cycle?" she asked the AI.

"Three hundred forty-four days, each of which is twenty hours long," Helios replied.

"But that would've been over a year ago!" Cosmo protested.

"That is correct."

"You just told me I'd only been in here for half an hour," the Seedrian said. "How is that possible?"

"I can explain to you later," the AI said. "Right now, you need to sleep."

"But I..."

"Sleep!" Helios insisted. A machine outside the pod beeped distantly, and Cosmo felt herself becoming drowsy almost immediately. Her eyelids seemed to triple in weight, and her entire perception became like water that she was trying to hold in her hands. Maybe the little machine was right, maybe she should just let everything slide away for a while. She felt safe inside this little, steamy, enclosed world; the air was so warm, so comforting. She shut her eyes and returned to the world of dreams.

* * *

**So Cosmo made it back, and it seems everyone will be alright. However, there is more to this story yet; let us not forget that little probe so comfortably nestled in _Dione_'s hull, nor the dozens of dangerous consequences it could have.**


	16. Chapter 15: Wakeup Call

**Sorry for the late update, guys; some glitch hasn't let me sign in since Sunday. _But_, they apparently got that fixed, so now I've got my latest chapter ready. I've now written the inevitable reunion scene; I hope you all enjoy it.**

* * *

Chapter 15 - Wakeup Call

_Ring hallway, privateer cruiser vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_3:16, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

Nestor walked along the endlessly curving metal corridor, the tiny machine parts in his shoes making a repetitive tattoo on the steel floor. He didn't even look ahead of him; his feet knew the way, and Helios could always correct him if he strayed accidentally from his route. His mind was elsewhere, running through recent events.

In the almost-one-day since their mission at the Fall, the crew of _Hephaestus_ had settled conveniently into a loose three-shift schedule. Each person, with the exception of Shadow, needed five to eight hours of sleep in every twenty, with the result that there were always at least four personnel available at any given time. Tails wasn't in this routine yet; he was confined under glass and would be for another few days while his fractured ribs healed. The kitsune wasn't the only one, either; Nestor suspected that everyone had taken some kind of beating on that mission, and it would take more than a few hours of sleep to cure them.

Ironically, Cosmo seemed to be the one with the fewest symptoms, having been declared healthy just hours ago by Helios after nothing more than half a day of podrest. Nestor, Shadow, Amy, and Cream had been awake and present at the time. The latter two had been nothing short of ecstatic to see the young Seedrian alive and well; Nestor had ended up intervening to prevent her from having a second brush with death by asphyxiation. Helios was currently giving her a guided tour of the starship while its captain attended to other matters.

"Other matters" basically meant a lot of boring, tedious work. _Dione_ had taken heavy damage and was once again flight-incapable; she would have to be repaired yet again before the others could return home. However, Nestor also had some things he wanted to take care of while his passengers were still here. Since some of those things involved Tails' help, he was left with three days in which to create ways to occupy himself.

All of which led up to his current heading: Engine Room 2, three decks out from the ring. As he had learned over countless periods of slow business, "When at a loss for what to do, run a systems check." It was purely routine and completely uninteresting, but Nestor supposed he could put up with that. After all, with everything that had happened, there was bound to be some drama once everyone had a chance to interact.

At a whim, Nestor swung his right foot around mid-step and started to walk in the other direction. _"Need I even ask?"_ Helios said from the hedgehog's wristband. **[A/N: Italics and quotation marks = translated to Universal, in this case from Terroran.]**

"_No,"_ he answered, then inquired in kind: _"How's Tails doing?"_

"_Sleeping,"_ Helios replied. _"His injuries are healing at a good pace."_

"_Can you wake him up safely?"_

"_I believe so, but it could interrupt his recovery process."_

"_Do it,"_ Nestor said. _"Take your time with the acclimation; I'll need a few minutes to get something ready. Oh, and wrap up that tour soon. I think Cosmo should be there when he wakes up. Someone once told me to always keep the gardens trimmed, and I think I know why. "_

"_Consider it done. Any particular reason for all this?"_

"_The voice of greater experience."_

"_Ahh..."_ the AI said, understanding. _"Full circle, is it?"_

"_Full circle,"_ Nestor agreed, nodding. If what he suspected was correct, this vessel would soon become a very interesting place to be. And as he told some customers, getting to interesting places and bringing other people with him was his specialty. Best to keep the gardens trimmed, then, for you never knew when they might be needed.

* * *

_Medical bay, privateer cruiser vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_3:19, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

Tails jerked awake, surfacing suddenly from another nightmare. Like his last one, it was constructed out of twisted and warped memories from the Metarex War. He had witnessed a collosal Metarex battle station, but even more massive than it had been in real life; he had watched a tidal wave of yellow laser fire bearing down on the _Typhoon_, slowed by the warped space through which it traveled, and been powerless to stop it; he had stood between Cosmo and a person intent on killing her, a person who had become little more than a terrifying black silhouette in the turmoil of his sleeping mind.

"Tails, are you awake?" Helios's voice asked from the speaker inside the pod. "I'm going to start the acclimation cycle; that will make it easier for you to adjust to the outside conditions."

"I'm getting out?" Tails asked, confused. It hadn't felt like he'd been in here for that long, though dreams could make it hard to tell.

"Yes," Helios replied patiently, and left it at that. The atmosphere inside the pod gradually began to cool down and become clearer as the vents cycled in colder, drier air. Moisture that had collected in the kitsune's fur started to evaporate. The chill was disconcerting at first, but it also made Tails feel more awake. After a minute or so, the glass lid of the pod split in two and slid down into the metal on either side. The inrush of colder air converted the remaining humidity into steam that momentarily obscured the kitsune's vision. **[A/N: I think that's about the same as what happens in those movies when the stasis containers open and all that vapor comes billowing out.]**

"You may now exit the capsule," Helios said. Tails sat up and rubbed his eyes to clear them, shivering slightly as he adjusted to normal temperature levels. The sound of footsteps alerted him to someone else's approach; whoever it was stopped in the doorway, then spoke in a voice that froze the fox solid:

"Tails!?"

* * *

Cosmo could truly be said to remember every waking moment of her life. She had, technically, been alive for less than a day and conscious for only a fraction of that time. Since she had left the so-called "homeostasis pod," she had been enthusiastically greeted by Amy and Cream, introduced to the captain of the starship she was on (who was interesting, to put it mildly), and been taken on a tour around the vessel by the same AI that had spoken to her earlier. She had noticed two things about the conversation: there had been very little mention of what had transpired after the Sonic Driver fired, and any questions she had asked about Tails had been carefully evaded.

Now, something else was unusual: Helios had ended the tour abruptly and had Cosmo return to the medical bay. There hadn't been so much as a word from the AI at any of the terminals she had passed since; there was just the same blank triangle on every screen. She had a feeling that something strange must be going on, something the others didn't want her to know.

Cosmo stepped out of the elevator and into the lower-gravity region of the cruiser. She turned left, passed through the open bay doors, crossed the hangar, and entered the circular hallway beyond. Upon turning into the medical bay, a wide room that stretched halfway around the fuselage of the ship, she was surprised to see one of the pods open, and even more so by the person sitting in it.

"Tails!?" she asked.

* * *

Tails stared wide-eyed at someone he had, from the Fall until the past day or so, given up as a person he would never see again. She had died that day, killed by the fox's own hand, yet here she was, standing before him in the flesh. He had known before that she had survived, but his mind simply hadn't been able to grasp the idea in its entirety. The kitsune had imagined a hundred way in which this very scene might happen, but none of those came to mind now. Numbed as he was by shock and disbelief, he could only come up with one whispered word: "Cosmo...?"

Those two syllables were like a mental earthquake that shattered the floodgate holding back his emotions. He scrambled over the side of the open pod, heedless of the pain it caused him. However, his foot caught on the short metal wall; he flipped completely over in midair and faceplanted, a maneuver that would have been impossible in Mobius-normal gravity. The impact sent needles of pain lancing through his cracked ribs. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, then felt a hand on his shoulder.

Tails looked up, and his and Cosmo's eyes met. They held each other's gaze for what seemed like hours. Finally, the Seedrian broke the silence: "Are you okay?"

The kitsune nodded silently. "Cosmo," he repeated, "I have to..." He faltered, then looked away and shut his eyes in shame. "Yeah, I'm fine. I need to... to go take care of..." His voice trailed off; he got to his feet and walked out. He rounded the corner into the hallway and promptly bumped into someone coming the other way.

* * *

"Whoa, traffic!" Nestor said, reaching out a hand to steady the kitsune who had just collided with him. "You look like you're in a hurry. Something eatin' you, kid?"

"I really don't want to talk about it," Tails replied, not looking Nestor in the eye. He kept going at the same pace: slow enough to be called a walk, but not quite so much that it looked natural. Nestor watched him go, then turned around and looked at Cosmo questioningly. The Seedrian merely shrugged. Nestor considered for a moment, then followed Tails.

He caught up to the fox midway across the hangar, moving as quickly as he could in the low gravity. "You know, if it's anything I can help with..."

"It's not," Tails said curtly.

"Well, let me know anyway," Nestor continued as they entered the landing bay. "Maybe I can refer you to a specialist."

The kitsune stopped in front of an elevator. He looked back, giving an annoyed sigh at the captain's attempted humor. He punched the "down" button with more force than necessary, then replied, "Look, I just want to be alone for a while, alright?" The elevator door opened, and he stepped in. Nestor started to follow, but halted; the kitsune had hit "close," and going any farther would have been unwise at that point. The door slid shut, and the elevator dropped down the shaft toward the ring.

* * *

Tails disembarked the elevator, stepped onto the moving floor of the ring hallway, and started toward the passenger quarters, his thoughts seething with a confusing mixture of emotions. _What's _wrong_ with me?_ he wondered. _First I lie to Nestor about the Fall, and now I don't even have the guts to talk to Cosmo about it? She must've known what I was going to say... Argh, imagine what she must think of me! She was brave enough to sacrifice her own life, and I can't even work up the courage to say a simple thing like "I'm sorry." It's pathetic._

He kept going, ignoring the ever-present sound of the ship's mechanics until a familiar voice spoke over it: "You won't get away that easily, kid."

Tails turned to see Nestor leaning against the wall of the open elevator. He hadn't gotten off; the movement of the ring caused the wall to move as well, allowing him to keep pace with the kitsune. Tails couldn't help but laugh a bit at the situation, though it did little to help his mood.

"I'll figure it out eventually, you know," Nestor continued. "You might as well tell me so I don't surprise you with it some time."

Tails sighed. "It has to do with the Fall," he said.

"What happened?"

"The cannon," he replied. "It... didn't happen exactly the way I told you."

"Go on," Nestor prompted.

"Well, I already told you that the Metarex were the same species as Cosmo, right?" The hedgehog nodded. "So, knowing that, and now that you've seen the... you know..." he made a vague gesture at the side of his head where Cosmo's rosebuds were, "this should make a bit more sense to you. See, Seedrians can do a sort of metamorphosis where they become entirely plants; I don't know exactly how it works. The Metarex were able to use the power of the Planet Eggs to alter the transformation, enhance it, turn it into something that could initiate Forestation, and that's exactly what the anomaly was."

Nestor nodded. "Okay, I think I see now. So, what went down once that happened?"

"It turns out Cosmo could do that, too. See, after we overcharged the cannon and destroyed the plant, there was still something left, some kind of core that still had Dark Oak – the Metarex high commander – controlling it. He generated this energy field to keep himself safe, and at the same time started trying to crush the Planet Eggs. Now, that would've meant a huge explosion and no life force for most of the galaxy's planets, so we obviously wanted to stop that. The trouble was, the cannon used Sonic himself, charged with Chaos energy, as ammunition, and we didn't want to fire if all we could accomplish was breaking him on that shield."

"So... how did you punch a hole in it?"

"Cosmo did that. She flew out to the anomaly – passed right through the field, as it happened – did her metamorphosis, and planted herself on Dark Oak. She took down the barrier for us, but she also put herself right in the line of fire."

Nestor chuckled. "Well, _that's_ a bit of a conundrum," he said. "How'd you get out of that one?" He paused, and the Ring dropped. "Oh..." he muttered, his good humor evaporating in a heartbeat. "_Kobukra_. That explains a lot." Tails turned right and Nestor disembarked the elevator; Helios opened the door, allowing them to enter the passenger quarters area. "You guys _did_ take the shot, right?"

Tails only shook his head silently.

"Then what's the deal?" Nestor questioned, starting to sound impatient. "I thought you were going to be straight with me this time. Or did I hear wrong?"

"I was by myself, alright!?" Tails shouted angrily, spinning around to face the startled hedgehog. "It was only me on the bridge! I was the one at the weapon controls! _We_ didn't take the shot; _I_ took the shot!" The kitsune made a fist and slammed it against the wall, trying to vent his frustration. "_I killed her!_" He turned his head and glared openly at Nestor. "That straight enough for you?" There was no answer; Nestor seemed shocked by his outburst. Tails turned back to the wall and leaned his head forward until it rested against the metal. No one spoke for over a minute.

"You didn't have to lie to me about this, Tails," Nestor finally said.

"I don't need you angry at me, too."

Nestor looked at him, contemplating. "No one's angry about this," he said. "Not me, and not Cosmo. I can see why you kept that a secret, and I just wanted to tell you that, for the record, it wasn't necessary."

"What makes you so sure about what Cosmo's thinking?" Tails challenged, turning to face the slate-gray hedgehog.

"Hey, you don't have to take my word for it," he replied, holding up both hands. "Ask her yourself." He gestured toward the door on his right, directly across from the one Tails had taken. As if on cue, the metal slid back, revealing Cosmo directly on the other side. Judging by the angle of her head, she had had her ear to the door. **[A/N: I assume Seedrians have ears, since they're basically humanoid in other respects. They're probably under where the rosebuds are, possibly inside them; flowers are about the right shape to catch sound waves, so maybe the buds evolved to grow around the ear canals? Yeah, that sounds pretty good, let's keep it.]**

Tails' mind went temporarily silent just as it had in the medical bay as he locked eyes with the Seedrian for the second time. Behind him, Nestor quietly stepped toward the elevator at the end of the hall. Helios's eye emerged from the wall as he passed and received a smack for its trouble. The hedgehog pointed to the lens, then at the panel, and slashed two fingers across his throat. The AI got the message; after the elevator door shut, the lens retracted and sealed itself with a metal shutter. The blue triangle on the screen winked off. The two were now effectively alone.

As the shock wore off, Tails cast around for something to say. "So... um... you heard all that?"

Cosmo nodded silently. "I... I never thought you doing that would... would hurt you much. I thought... I was the only who would be sacrificing something."

Tails only looked at the floor, emotions once again building up. He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting down his unruly feelings; the last thing he wanted to do was break down now. He felt Cosmo's hands on his shoulders and heard her speaking again: "Tails, what's wrong? Whatever you're thinking, say it, please."

He couldn't help it; the hastily constructed dam in his mind broke. He lurched forward and buried his face in Cosmo's shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably. She didn't recoil in surprise or flinch away as he had expected; quite to the contrary, she put her arms around him comfortingly, as if she had expected a reaction like this at some point. "Cosmo, I'm so... so sorry!" the kitsune cried haltingly. "More than you... you can ever imagine! Please... please forgive me!"

"Don't worry, Tails, I know," the Seedrian replied quietly. "I heard you talking to Captain Kairos; I know you regret it, even though you shouldn't."

It took Tails a moment to realize who Cosmo was referring to; for a moment, he had thought she meant Admiral Kairos, the commander who had fought alongside them in the Battle of Orion Cluster. Then the rest of her sentence clicked into place. "Why not?" he asked, still breathing shakily. "If not me, then who? The Sonic Driver? Sonic himself, because he was in the cannon? Shadow, just because he tried to kill you once? Slice it however you want, no one else pushed that trigger."

Cosmo laughed slightly. "Tails, you did the right thing, just like I asked you to. Just like it had to be done." Her expression became more downcast. "If there's anyone to blame for my death, it should be me, because I went out there without trying to think of something else to do first."

"What?" Tails asked, surprised. He pulled back from her shoulder to look her in the face, all traces of crying gone. "Oh, no, no, no, don't think that. Don't _ever_ let that in your mind, Cosmo, not for a second. Sonic was willing to sacrifice himself, too, but we didn't let him. You were the bravest of us all: you didn't give us the chance to stop you, because you knew no one else could accomplish what you could."

Cosmo nodded. "Still, I shouldn't have asked you to fire the cannon... if I'd known what it would do to you..."

"I did the same thing you did," Tails interrupted. "I was the only one there; no one else could've done the job. The difference was that I made it out alive."

"Not intact, though," Cosmo reminded him. "I could hear that much through the door."

Tails chuckled humorlessly, more of a grudging agreement than anything else. Right then, he made his decision. He took a couple steps back and held up his right hand. "Cosmo," he began, "I promise, as much as I can, I'll never do anything to hurt you, and anyone else who tries will have me to contend with. Just don't ask me to do anything that would leave me alive and you dead, because I won't do it for anything in the universe."

The Seedrian smiled and put her hand on his. "I promise," she replied. **[A/N: And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss... sorry, but there are too many similarities to pass up an opportunity like that.]**

Tails smiled as well. The expression faded quickly, though; there was one more thing he absolutely had to know, and it wouldn't be an easy question to ask. "Cosmo," he started again, "I'm curious. Can you remember what happened... right after I... you know..."

"Oh, you mean...?" Cosmo looked a little taken aback at the question. "I can't remember much... it's all a little unclear," she said thoughtfully. "Just light, mostly, so bright it blocked out almost everything else. Then I heard some things, people shouting, a lot of banging around. Then I woke up in one of those medical pods."

Tails sighed quietly; she hadn't heard. He thought about telling her right then and there, but something in his mind rebelled. Apparently he still couldn't muster the courage to confess to everything yet. **[A/N: To those of you who don't know, the events at the Fall are slightly different between the original version of the anime and the English dub. In the former, Tails essentially confesses his feelings for Cosmo just as the Sonic Driver fires, a line that 4Kids cut for some reason. There's some debate among us fans as to whether she would have heard, seeing as they were somehow able to communicate up until then.]**

But that was fine; Cosmo was alive and well, and the war was long since over. They didn't have to worry that the next Metarex attack might doom any one of them. Tails could afford to take small steps.

* * *

**Heh... oh, if only they knew...**

**As I just blatantly suggested, there's more coming. In fact, ****I realize now that "Eye of the Storm" would have been a much more fitting title, but unfortunately, I already used that two chapters ago. Some of you reviewers have already hit around it; next chapter, you guys'll have a chance to know for (somewhat) sure. Until then... farewell, readers.  
**


	17. Chapter 16: Hacksaw

**Argh. Creative block = very, very bad. That's all I'll say on the subject.**

**There is an upside, though: over the course of this extended waiting period, I've had time to finalize the various starship classifications used in the series. Note that a couple of ships have changed classes as a result of the system: _Hephaestus_ is now a corvette, and the _Typhoon_ is a frigate. The full list has been added to my profile.  
**

**Anyway, remember that second rise in action that I mentioned before? Well, here it comes. ZenoxKing, the reason I didn't name the last chapter that is because it would be a lazy cop-out, at least in my opinion. Points to anyone who can figure out where I came up with the chapter title.**

* * *

Chapter 16 – Hacksaw

_Hangar bay, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_4:03, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

Nestor clambered onto _Dione_'s dorsal side, welding torch in hand, gaining the top in two steps thanks to the reduced gravity. He gave the torch a tug, adding slack to the cable and rubber tube that were attached to it, then did the same to the aluminum wire in his other hand. The hedgehog crouched beside a rip in the gunship's hull, lowered his mirrored goggles, positioned the end of both tools near the crack, and flipped the switch. Argon shielding gas hissed from inside the torch; the tungsten-coated anode heated and discharged an arc of electricity into the wire. **[A/N: Gas-tungsten arc welding, the method of choice for the aerospace industry.]**

Nestor wasted no time; he brought the already melting aluminum tip into contact with the hull and guided it along the breach, leaving a trail of cooling metal in its wake. Normally, arc welding while sitting on the object in question was borderline suicidal, but the device being used was modified so that the powerful current flowed into the filler wire rather than the hull. He still wore protective gloves, but they were to shield against the infamous "welder's burn," a sunburn-like condition that the white-hot torch could cause in just a few seconds of exposure. Nestor stopped after about six inches and blew on the area he had just repaired; the heat from the electricity could also convert nearby oxygen into ozone, which would suffocate him if it got too dense. After a few seconds, he yanked up more wire and continued.

"_Sonic is outside,"_ said Helios's voice from Nestor's wrist.

"_Let him in,"_ he replied. The bay doors opened, and the other hedgehog entered halfway up the rounded "wall."

"Hey, Nestor!" he called, jogging over. "What're you up to?"

"Just some patching-up work," he replied, switching off the torch again. "_Dione_'s got holes in her again. You might want those," he added as Sonic approached, pointing to a workbench with a pair of extra safety goggles on it. Sonic put them on, and Nestor resumed welding.

"How's Tails doing?" he asked, walking up to stand by _Dione_'s engine output.

"Oh, he's up and about," Nestor answered. "Cosmo, too. He'll take a bit longer to heal outside the pod, but he can still take the meds. I figured those two would have some things to discuss, considering all that's happened."

"Yeah, I _bet_ they do," Sonic agreed, nodding. "Where are they?"

"I left 'em up by the passenger quarters," Nestor replied. "I went to check the engine, and they were gone by the time I went back past there. You need him for something?"

"Nah, I'm just... bored, I guess," Sonic said. He waited until Nestor finished the weld, then took off the goggles. "Catch you later!" he called, leaving the room as quickly as the low gravity allowed. **[A/N: If you're not getting that, think about how hard Sonic would have to push off to get up to full speed. Now put that in a fraction of the gravity he's used to running in. Doesn't work well.]**

Nestor watched him go, then swung down over the back of the gunship and planted his feet against the inside of the engine cone. He surveyed the black-stained metal for traces of damage. There were no cracks or punctures of the normal sort, but something else caught his eye. Halfway up the side of the opening, a cylindrical cavity had been made in _Dione_'s hull. It wasn't the work of weaponry; a laser would have passed straight through, a shell would still be lodged inside, and a missile would have made a much bigger crater.

"_How in stars...?"_ he muttered, feeling the inside of the hole with his free hand. The pit had been cut out – by a spinning, serrated edge, if the spiral grooves on the inside were anything to judge by. Further down, four smaller holes indicated where points had been stabbed into the newly-dug wall. Something had cut a notch into his ship and apparently decided to stick around for a bit. Worse, whatever it was was now _off_ of the gunship and somewhere aboard _Hephaestus_.

"_Helios,"_ Nestor said to his wrist, _"we've got trouble."_

"_What is the problem, captain?"_ the AI asked in reply. _"Not another reactor leak, I hope?"_

"_Put us on Class-C alert,"_ he said, ignoring what was only partly a joke. Whatever material those coolant pipes had originally been made of was now at least thirty percent aluminum filler. _"Keep everyone on the lookout for a little robot."_

"_Excuse me?"_

"_Small enough to fit in here,"_ Nestor said, turning his wrist so that the computer's tiny lens faced the hole carved into the hull. _"We've a stowaway aboard, and I think it came from the Fall."_

"_Acknowledged,"_ Helios replied, understanding the gravity of the situation. A second later, the AI's voice echoed over the intercom system, this time in Universal. "Shipwide alert: _Hephaestus_ has been boarded by suspected enemy intelligence-gathering equipment. Requesting all personnel to maintain radio silence except for short-wave burst communications. Scanners are being activated to pinpoint the target's location. Initiating Class-C security measures."

Around the hangar, fluorescent strips dimmed and red emergency lights winked on. The words "Class-C Security Threat" flashed on every available screen. Running comm links switched off, making it easier for Helios to track each signal that was sent. With luck, they could locate and shut down the little spy before it managed to transmit their position to anyone. _Although_, Nestor thought, _if this thing's been here as long as I think it has, we might already be compromised._

* * *

_Ring hallway, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_4:12, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

The spiky, diamond-shaped head of a Metarex remote tracking probe twitched upward, tiny, domed lenses scanning the corridor. Spectrometers indicated a shift in the ambient lighting toward the lower end of the spectrum: red lights, an indication of a loss of secrecy. The probe redoubled its speed, its four tiny, insectoid legs turning into a silver blur. It scampered up the wall, digging in mantis-like forearms to help it climb, and came to a halt beside an instrument panel. A tiny wire slid out of the spot where its mouth would have been; the robot stabbed it into the panel's data port.

-Initiating hacking algorithms...

--Hacking...

--Hacking...

--Counterintrusion software detected. Circumventing...

--Evasion failed.

~_What are you doing in my system?_

--Interpreting...

--Hostile intelligence active.

--Transmitting reply.

--_For the noble mission, all may be sacrificed._

~_Oh, shut it, will you? Get off my circuits!_

Fast as a snake, a lens apparatus emerged from the wall and pointed at the diminutive Metarex. Arcs of electricity shot from a pair of diodes on either side of the lens into the robot's body. It jerked, lost its grip, and fell to the floor. The light behind its orblike eyes went out.

--Fatal system error. Initiating emergency shutdown...

--...

--...

--...

--Reboot.

--Accessing recent sensory databanks...

--New objective assigned.

--Terminate hostile intelligence.

--Initiating combat algorithms...

The little probe's purple eyes suddenly glowed an angry red; it scampered back up the wall with blinding speed, straight at the eye above it. Before its enemy could react, it had shattered the lens with a sharp strike from a serrated forearm. The AI gave a yell of surprise, and the apparatus jerked back as if in pain. The Metarex dodged around the eye and drove its other blade into the base where the cable met the wall. The AI's camera went limp, and its voice was soon silenced as well by a third attack to the speaker.

--Hostile intelligence terminated.

--Objective met.

--Terminating combat algorithms.

The probe's eyes returned to their normal, inert violet color. It reinserted its wire into the data port and once again began to interface with the system.

--Initiating hacking algo^&$^%#$!

~_Hah! Not dead yet, parasite!_

--Interpreting...

--Error. Hostile intelligence remains active. Processing...

--...

--...

--Objective reassigned and revised.

--Bypass hostile intelligence.

--Copying attack code...

--...

--Success. Initiating...

~_What are you do^&$!_

--Initiating network intrusion...

--Hacking...

--Hacking...

--Success. External connections severed.

--Accessing door controls...

The Metarex severed the connection as the door beside the panel slid open. It crawled through and continued along the wall, leaving the data station to flash angry, mute symbols at the now empty corridor. Evidently, this other intelligence was vulnerable to its own attack codes; the probe filed that information for later use. After assuring itself that the hall it had entered was indeed deserted, it dropped to the floor and skittered along at full speed toward a second door.

"There you are!" The probe froze. The voice matched the yell that had come from the speakers on the other data station. The tiny robot looked up; sure enough, a lens apparatus of identical design had emerged from a second panel next to the destination. "I'll not let you escape this time, you little b... ahh!"

At that moment, the door slid open, and a crimson figure ran out and collided with the extended eye, knocking it out of position. "What's going on?" the figure shouted, evidently in response to the recent shift to high alert. The probe didn't hesitate; the blue, glowing gaze of the hostile AI had been diverted. The insect-like machine bolted for the elevator door, shielded from view by the new arrival, and slipped inside just as it closed.

* * *

"Knuckles, move, you're blocking my vision!" Helios said loudly. In response, the echidna shifted to the left, succeeding only in enlarging the camera's bright red blind spot. The AI had had enough; it pulled back its eye and electrocuted the crimson mass obstructing its view.

"Ouch!" Knuckles shouted. He jumped back and spun to face the eye, his temper flaring up at once. "Why, you little..." He pulled back a fist to punch the AI's camera, but a third person quickly got in his way.

"Hey, cool it, Knuckles," Sonic said calmly, catching his fist in midair. He stepped to one side and looked from the echidna to Helios and back. "What's the deal?"

"That... _thing_ just zapped me!" Knuckles said angrily, pointing at the AI's camera.

"I had little choice," Helios replied defensively. "A hostile was in the room, and this imbecile was obstructing my vision."

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!?"

"Okay, okay, look," Sonic interrupted, steering away from another argument. "Both of you just calm down. We've got a crisis to deal with."

"What crisis? Would somebody please tell me what's going on!?" Knuckles said, his voice still louder than normal. Not knowing why a shipwide alarm had been raised did nothing to help his already short temper. As if to further add to the confusion, Amy burst out of her stateroom at the point, looking as if she had just been asleep when the alarm was raised.

"Stupid Metarex!" she exclaimed, not quite yelling, but still obviously irritated. "Haven't they learned what happens to 'em when they show up on our ship uninvited?" She hefted her Piko Piko hammer for emphasis. The weapon (named after a cartoon device for who knew what reason) consisted of a relatively short handle that ended in a comically large, red and gold head. But the mallet's size was where the humor ended: Sonic had seen Amy dent four-inch titanium plating with it.

"We have an enemy aboard," Helios explained to Knuckles, putting clear emphasis on each word to make sure the echidna understood the full gravity of the situation they were in. "An espionage probe, most likely. Very fast, and armed with razor-sharp weapons and formidable hacking capabilities. If you had payed attention to my announcement, you might have known that."

"So where is this thing now?" Sonic asked.

"It _was_ here in the hallway," the AI replied. "Unfortunately, after his – excuse me, _our_ – little debacle just now, I lost track of its location. The most likely escape route is into the ring hallway; it was able to disable my data station there and now has full control of... one moment." The camera retracted into the wall, leaving Sonic and Knuckles to stare at it in confusion.

"What do you think...?" the echidna began after a few seconds.

"Done," Helios said suddenly, its eye reappearing. "The little insect was able to get into the elevator as it closed. I cut power to the entire car before it could hack the controls. Unfortunately, I can't bring it up without reactivating it; as soon as I restored power, the probe would take over the elevator and no doubt use it to reach Engine 3 Maintenance. From there – assuming its processing power is sufficient – it could potentially access a portion of _Hephaestus_'s mainframe, hack through my defense, and transmit a homing signal that would give away our location to any ship within broadcast range." The AI paused as if it were contemplating its next words. "And, given Nestor's... business, this ship's range is considerable."

"Well, there's a simple way to fix that," Knuckles spoke up. "Shut it down at the source." He punched his fist into his other hand, leaving know doubt about what he meant by that statement.

"Yes, but how do we get down there?" Amy asked, now holding her hammer at her side in one hand. "Like you said, we can't use the elevator."

"There is a second way in," Helios replied. "A series of maintenance passages run belowdecks throughout the ship. They allow personnel to reach internal system components and gain secondary access to many critical areas, including the engine rooms. Not the most spatially accommodating of hallways, but they serve their purpose."

"Sounds good," Sonic said, nodding. "Where's the entrance?"

* * *

_Internal access passage, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_4:31, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

"Not spatially accommodating" turned out to be a bit of an understatement. "Hallways" was even less accurate; at two feet square, they were more like tunnels. Sonic, Knuckles, and Amy were forced to crouch and proceed in single file. Sonic was placed in the center; on the off chance that they were attacked, the others' fists and hammer would be more effective than his speed in such close quarters. Small, red LEDs lined the ceiling corners every meter or so, casting sharp shadows across the metal floor and suffusing everything with a crimson glow. Hinged metal panels were also spaced periodically along the walls, no doubt to let Nestor or others access whatever technology lay beneath the decks of _Hephaestus_.

"How much farther?" Sonic asked for the umpteenth time. When he had thought about Tails' proposed second trip into space, half-crawling through a dimly-lit passageway and having nothing to look at except a few square feet of metal and the back of Amy's dress had never come to mind. Indeed, none of them had ever had to do so on the _Typhoon_, at least as far as he knew. He was getting more claustrophobic by the second, and he couldn't stop himself from thinking about what would happen if one of those pipes along the wall should burst.

"About four more feet," Amy replied. Indeed, only a few seconds later, she turned right into a second hallway that had previous been hidden from view by the dim light and tight quarters. Sonic followed her and was somewhat disappointed: this passage looked no different than the last. He craned his neck to look over Amy's shoulder and saw that the tunnel appeared to finish out some twenty yards ahead.

"Helios, this looks like a dead end," Sonic said to his wrist. A few hours after their return from the Fall, Nestor had given small, basic comm devices to those who didn't already own something of the sort – in other words, everyone except himself and Tails. "Are you sure this is the right way?"

"No need to worry, there is a way down," the AI replied.

They kept going, catching glimpses of other tunnels that branched off to both sides as they passed. "Do those lead into the _rooms_...?" Amy wondered aloud, looking down one of them. Sonic couldn't see her expression in the dim light, but her voice sounded both suspicious and uneasy. She eventually stopped and said, "Oh, okay. Back up a bit, Sonic, I need to turn around."

"Why?" Sonic asked, doing as she said. Amy didn't answer, she just turned toward him and lowered herself feet-first through a gap in the floor. Her head dropped out of view, and Sonic looked over the edge and saw that the end of the passage, rather than dead-ending, actually continued downward with the aid of handles going down one wall.

Sonic turned as well and followed Amy down the ladder, realizing as he did that they were climbing beside the elevator shaft. Eventually, the three of them reached the bottom, where there was a space just barely large enough for all of them to stand upright. From there, three more tunnels branched out – one across from the ladder and two on either side. At Helios's direction, they took the middle path. A short distance later, they came to a true dead end, where a hatch in the ceiling allowed them to finally enter the engine room itself.

The room was low-ceilinged by comparison with the rest of the ship (though certainly better than the passageways) and lit by yellow strips along the ceiling and floor. The walls to either side were lined with all manner of heavy machinery, performing the collection of jobs that was necessary to power _Hephaestus_'s third engine set. The equipment produced a low hum and an even deeper tone that couldn't be heard, but was instead felt through every solid surface in the room. Thick metal pipes ran over everything, supplying fuel, exchanging heat, and removing whatever waste the various components produced.

The two hedgehogs and echidna stopped before the closed elevator door. To either side were short sets of stairs and, beyond those, two more hallways identical to the one they had just walked down. These two were higher up – in technical terms, slightly closer to the starship's ring. Apparently, each hallway corresponded to one of the module's three engine cones. Helios emerged from the wall next to the elevator door to greet them as they approached.

"Ah, good, you've arrived," the AI said. "Just give me a moment to get the elevator down here. The camera inside has been destroyed, but the terminal itself is largely intact. My plan is to reactivate power, then put up a convincing but deliberately unsuccessful defense when the probe attempts to hack me. Afterward, it will undoubtedly bring the car down to the engine room, where you three will be able to dispatch it. Are there any questions?"

The three of them made no replies. The camera retracted, and several seconds passed with no noise or movement. Then, surprisingly, then eye reappeared, and Helios spoke again. "Something is unusual," it said. "There was no attempt to hack the system, and no response that I could detect with the visual camera out of commission. I am bringing the elevator down myself now; be ready for anything."


	18. Chapter 17: Bug Byte

Chapter 17 – Bug Byte

_Engine 3 maintenance, privateer corvette_ Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association  
4:40, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time) _

As the elevator descended toward the engine deck, Sonic did his best to do as Helios said and be ready for anything. His legs were tensed and prepared to move quickly if the probe decided to make a dash for one of the numerous potential hiding spots when the door opened; his hands were up and in fists in case it tried a leaping attack; his eyes scanned the edges of the doorway lest it try to climb out along the walls or ceiling. But when the double metal doors actually slid open, Sonic found himself entirely unprepared for what he saw inside.

There was nothing there.

"What? Where'd it go?" Amy asked incredulously, stepping forward into the elevator and looking around in confusion. "How could it get out of... Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!" At those last six words, Helios extended its eye around from outside, and Sonic and Knuckles ran to look as well. A six-inch-wide, perfectly round hole had been cut through the metal floor of the elevator car, no doubt in order for the tiny Metarex to escape.

"Great!" Knuckles exclaimed, turning around and folding his arms. "While we were crawling around in pipes to get down here, that thing cut its way out. It could be halfway across the ship by now!"

"Yes, well... it seems we have a complication, to say the least," Helios commented. "I will inform the captain of this development."

Several seconds passed, then identical hisses of static issued from their three devices, followed by Nestor's voice. The message was short and tersely delivered: "Contact with hostile forces lost. All personnel report immediately to the landing area." The comm switched off. Wordlessly, Helios opened the elevator door, and the three stepped in just as silently. The car closed and started back up toward the passenger quarters.

* * *

The Metarex intelligence probe crouched flat against the metal, barely fitting within the single inch of clearance between the elevator and the floor of the shaft. It had been stymied in its attempt to scale the wall slowly by the car's unexpected reactivation; the robot had had to jump, then flatten itself as much as possible and spend a few cycles calculating the odds of survival - the closest its programs could get to hoping. As luck would have it, the gap was just the right size for the probe's body; it had stayed in its spot, listening to the brief conversation above, then stood up once the car left. It flexed its limbs, testing them for damage, before getting back to work on its primary objective.

-Interpreting audio recording...

-...

-...  
-Determined: proximity clear.  
-Determined: hostile forces regrouping. Processing...

-...

-Reprioritizing objectives.  
-Access enemy mainframe.  
-Estimated time: 0:10:00.

The probe ran over to one of the walls, the direction from which seismic activity readings were highest. It climbed onto the vertical surface, then set to work cutting through the metal, using its vibrating, diamond-edged forelimbs like power saws. The machine worked around its stationary body, with the result that, when the inch-thick steel plate came free of the elevator door, it was a perfect circle. A gentle nudge made sure that it dropped forward into the room on the other side rather than landing on its own creator. The Metarex detached its limbs from the plate and looked around.

-Intermediate objective assigned.  
-Locate mainframe access terminal.  
-Estimated time: 0:08:56.

It spotted something high up on the wall and focused its optics. It was a data station like the ones that had contained the hostile intelligence unit.

-Terminal located.  
-Resuming: Access enemy mainframe.

-Situational override: hostile intelligence present. Processing...

-...  
-Intermediate objective assigned.  
-Locate hardware mainframe access.  
-Estimated time: 0:08:51.

The tiny robot crept up the wall and stopped directly below the data station. There, it set about cutting a second hole through the thicker metal plating under which it would, presumably, find a portion of the actual circuits that the enemy AI used. Thinking idly was not something that such a simple machine could afford to spend processing power on; however, as a timed subroutine dictated, even the humble tracking probe would find itself accessing a certain part of its memory banks:

-Universal directive to apply to all allied units, contingents, and operations.  
-Advance PROJECT/"Forestation" to conclusion.  
-Install and safeguard order.  
_-For the great and noble mission, all may be sacrificed._

This piece of information warranted a special spot in the probe's computer, surrounded by an arsenal of firewalls and other defensive software and physically shielded against every form of disruptive signal. That simple set of instructions, the Universal Directive, was embedded into the mind of every Metarex soldier and was meant to endure long past when the body would cease to function. Nothing could change it, and very few things could destroy it. There could be no higher order.

* * *

_Intelligence mainframe, privateer corvette _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association  
4:45, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time) _

Helios watched as the three people remaining in Module 3 exited through the main door, which was still locked in the "open" position due to the probe's tampering. Watching had a slightly different definition for an AI unit than for most people. The door's camera was disabled, so Helios used other methods to track their locations – triangulating the sounds of their speech and footsteps, tracking their movements on the deck through seismic sensors, and reading minute electrical fluctuations, to name a few. As the steward did this, it was also using similar methods in conjunction with working cameras to check and recheck the entire section of the ship for people still inside.

"Has everyone been evacuated?" Helios asked Amy. Even with reliable sensors, it was always wise to consult. While the AI spoke and waited for a response – an exceedingly slow and inefficient process, but necessary – it prepared to seal all plausible access routes to the area. Removing an entire module of the corvette from the risk of entry would greatly reduce the percentage of the ship they would need to search. It simply wouldn't be acceptable for the probe to sneak back in once the crew vacated the area.

"I think so," Amy answered. "All the rooms empty?"

"Double- and triple-checked," Helios replied. "Initiating sector isolation." In truth, the AI had already done so, but the actual mechanics involved took a few seconds to get moving. A heavy bulkhead closed off the main hallway; out of the crew's sight, similarly thick shutters sealed the maintenance tunnel and all other nonessential systems that could possibly allow access to the area. Water and ventilation were still necessary, but if the invader tried to access any of those, Helios would know.

"Module 3 evacuated and locked down," the AI announced, this time though the terminal in the hangar. Nestor was there, along with everyone not present outside the sealed-off section. Tails had been called immediately after the shift to high alert to assist with something, and Cosmo had simply come with him from wherever they had been before. Cream and Shadow had been in _Hephaestus_'s main body at the time of Nestor's summons and were present as well, along with the creature called Cheese that seemed to follow the young rabbit wherever she went.

"Good," Nestor replied. "Send the rest of them up here; we're almost ready."

"Understood," Helios said, making a nodding motion with its eye. At the same time, it spoke through the other three's comm-pieces: "The rest of the crew are assembled in the hangar; arrive there with all possible speed. Correction, all _plausible _speed," it added, thinking of Sonic and playing the realization off as an afterthought.

"Not a problem," Sonic replied. He added in an undertone: "Not like I can really get going in this gravity, anyway."

Helios kept track of their progress along the ring hallway using security cameras with mirrored lenses designed to look like part of the wall. This took only a small amount of processing power; the AI allocated a greater portion of its RAM to the hangar, the digital equivalent of turning its head, in order to pay more attention to what was going on.

* * *

_Hangar, privateer corvette _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association  
4:45, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time) _

"Are you sure you can make this work, Nestor?" Tails asked, sounding a little uneasy. He was seated on top of an ammunition crate beside _Dione_'s nose.

"Was I sure last time you asked?" Nestor replied from the gunship's left wing, not looking up from his work. He was using a soldering iron and wire cutters to modify the electronics of a handheld scanner. The Metarex probe was invisible on every wavelength capable of penetrating the corvette's hull; to locate it, they would need something its creators hadn't planned for.

"Yes..." Tails answered hesitantly.

"Have I given you any indication that circumstances have changed?"

"Not that I know of."

"Therefore," Nestor said calmly, "do you think I'm sure, or not?"

Tails didn't answer immediately. "The reason I'm asking," he replied after a few seconds, "is because you've been at that for a while now, and it looks just like it did when you started."

"You want to take a crack at it?" he asked, offering the device and tools. As if to confirm that he wasn't being sarcastic, he added, "To be honest, I am a little lost."

The kitsune accepted the equipment and examined the circuitry, mentally rearranging the components and assembling an idea of how the device worked. He lowered the cutters and severed a few of the cords linking the CPU to the sensors. "Why couldn't you just write up a new program for Helios?" he asked as he worked. "We don't really have to hotwire this thing."

"Writing a program would take a good hour or more," Nestor answered. "If that probe can hack like Helios says it can, we might not have that long."

"But why this device in particular?"

"Because the shipboard scanners belong to Helios," the hedgehog replied. "Good luck getting him to let you mess with _his_circuits."

"Why do you call Helios 'him'?" Tails asked, noticing Nestor's choice of pronouns.

"Why not?"

"It's a computer; it doesn't really have a gender."

"Call him whatever you want," Nestor said. "Helios is a male name, that's all."

"So is Hephaestus," Tails countered.

"She's a ship. They're always either female or genderless." A few meters away, Shadow rolled his eyes at the rather trivial argument. Tails saw the motion and didn't continue the discussion. After a few minutes, he caught a hint of some flowery scent and noticed Cosmo watching him work on the device over his shoulder.

"What are you working on?" she asked after a second or two.

"I need to find a way to make that Metarex show up on the scanner," Tails answered. "It has signal insulation, and its casing is of a very similar material to the ship's deck, so making it show up will be trickier than usual. I've got an idea for how to do it, but I'm not sure if this device has the hardware I need."

"Hmm..." Cosmo didn't really know how to respond; she wasn't familiar with this sort of thing, so there wasn't any advice she could offer. She noticed Tails' wire cutters hovering uncertainly over a cluster of small black boxes. "What are those?" she asked.

"Transistors, I think," the fox replied. "Electronic switches. They don't have any moving parts, only different electrical states, so they can be manufactured very small." He paused for a few seconds. "In fact," he continued, frowning at the tiny components, "that might be what I'm looking for. If that one goes to the battery, and the rest all... Yes, that's the one! Thanks, Cosmo!" He smiled briefly at her, then went to work again.

"Um... you're welcome," Cosmo said, a little taken aback at actually having been able to help Tails after all. She caught Nestor looking at her and wearing an amused expression. When the Seedrian looked questioningly at him, he simply shrugged, showing considerable interest in a weld mark on _Dione_'s hull.

Cosmo looked over Tails' shoulder again in time to see him snip several wires within the block of transistors and fuse them directly together. He snapped the metal cover back into place, switched on the power, flipped the setting to thermal imaging, and pointed the business end of the device at Nestor. The screen showed an image of the hedgehog in bright red, orange, and yellow against a darker blue background. The picture quality was surprisingly high; they could see the roiling haze of air currents that his body heat generated, colored violet by the sensor.

"Still takes a good reading," he said. He tossed the device to Nestor, who caught it with one hand.

"What did you do to it?" the captain asked, examining it in search of some change in appearance.

"I disconnected the emitters from the processor and hard-wired the power supply," Tails answered. "Now it'll produce a constant upper-UV stream no matter what setting you use."

"What good is that?" Nestor inquired. "The probe's stealth-coated; it doesn't reflect UV."

"That's why I set it to thermal imaging," Tails explained. "How does a stealth coating do its job?"

"Usually absorbs the waves," Nestor replied. "Scanner doesn't get any feedback, so it looks like they're flying off into empty space. It can't tell there's anything there."

"What happens to matter when it absorbs radiation?"

"It heats up," said Nestor. After a second, understanding came to his expression. "No... first, it becomes excited. And when it returns to the ground state, _then_it heats up, but most of the energy is re-radiated. Usually pretty quickly."

"And always at a lower frequency," Tails agreed, nodding.

"Infrared," the two said together, just as the bay doors slid open to admit Sonic, Amy, and Knuckles.

"You guys seem to agree on _something_," Sonic observed cheerfully, approaching them with the loping gait that had replaced his usual run-and-stop appearances. "Got a way to track down that robot yet?"

"We think so," said Nestor, holding up the scanner. "The probe's stealth absorbs most wavelengths, but we think if we hit it with a sustained stream at those same wavelengths, we can make it fluoresce and register on the thermal."

"Black light," Tails added for Sonic's benefit; he had explained the concept before.

"If you say so, bro," Sonic replied. It was a common response; the hedgehog trusted his near-brother's judgment almost without question when it came to technology, though - and probably because - he frequently failed to understand them himself. Before the conversation could go any farther, however, a metallic clatter from beside the door caused everyone to look around.

Helios's eye, which had been watching the discussion intently a second before, had gone slack and collided with the wall below the terminal, while the attached screen had gone blank. At the same time, the AI's voice spoke haltingly from Nestor's wrist, as though it were trying to talk while busy with something else. "Little time," it said. "Probe has accessed the mainframe... hard line compromised... terminals disconnected... conserving resources for counterint..." The AI's transmission degraded into confused sound, followed by a few seconds of static before the call ended.

A short, stunned silence passed, then Nestor bolted for one of the larger manual-access terminals. "The probe's gotten into the system," he called as he went. "It sounds like Helios is having trouble; I'm trying to help him out." He slid to a stop, booted up the console, and punched a key to bring up the command-line interface. His fingers moved with lighting speed, darting across the keys and navigating through the code so quickly that it might have been impossible for Cosmo to read even if it hadn't been written in Terroran.

He paused his typing after thirty or so seconds; blue text had appeared on the screen in addition to the gray produced by his own keyboard. "_Kora, kora..._," he murmured. A line of green code appeared. "Uh-oh." Nestor typed furiously again for a few seconds, then stopped. The others had reached the terminal by now and were watching with both confusion and interest.

More blue text appeared; Cosmo decided this must be Helios. Several lines typed themselves on the screen, while Nestor seemed to wait in anticipation. Row after row of green appeared next, showing the same symbols again and again. After a few seconds, the slate-gray hedgehog's eyes widened. "Whoa, is that thing about to- Gargh!" Nestor recoiled back as a single red glyph appeared over the display. An instant later, the screen changed to solid blue with a few lines of white text printed on it.

"What happened?" Tails asked worriedly, probably afraid that something had happened to Nestor himself.

"It- It cut me off!" the captain exclaimed, staring at the console in disbelief. "The probe figured out what I was doing, cracked the firewall and cut my connection to the mainframe... before I even had time to react!" He continued to look stunned. "...That was a _hell_ of an exploit."

"What are you gonna do?" Knuckles asked.

"Hope Helios can handle it," Nestor replied. "I only had time to give him a bit more flexibility; he'll have to make his own use of it."

* * *

_Intelligence mainframe, privateer corvette _Hephaestus – _Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association  
4:55, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

Helios sensed Nestor's console leaving the network and realized within a cycle what the probe had done. Before the intruder had time to shift its attention, the steward struck with a needle-like attack algorithm, slotting a few extra bytes into the enemy's code sequence. It paused, temporarily stymied. Helios quickly copied important files to an adjacent matrix, sealed it off, and planted a data charge. The probe retreated to its own hardware as the charge detonated, blanking a region of the ship's memory; a virus pursued the intruder and was annihilated as it tried to enter by a physical jolt of electricity through the wire.

_-Enemy of the Universal Directive._

_-Do not oppose us._

_~Quiet, pest._

Helios followed up the text with a torrent of randomized text from its memory: long enough to have some meaning and catch the probe's attention, but too short and scrambled to tell it anything. The equivalent was a string of slurred speech. While it was busy trying to decipher the "message," the AI gathered all of _Hephaestus_'s vital data, compressed it, copied it to a single matrix, and disconnected the hard lines.

The probe, meanwhile, had identified the file as useless and discarded it. Once again, and with single-minded determination, it emerged and invaded the corvette's mainframe. Helios launched a scrambling program at it, but to its surprise, the attack was redirected; the AI blocked it with a copied piece of its own code. The probe immediately started to flit through the modules, no doubt hunting for access to the ship control systems. There wasn't time to block it; Helios jabbed it again and switched two bytes of code, steering the enemy into a module to which it then cut power, destroying the data inside.

* * *

-Copying attack algorithm...

-...

-Success. Initiating...

* * *

Helios didn't know what happened next; all it realized was that, suddenly, action was inconsistent with situational logic. It retreated, relegating more than ninety percent of its access permission to an unfamiliar program and transferring its core operating files into a single module. A sweep of its record revealed no apparent reason for the action; it had seemingly entered the command stream of its own accord. A message file opened, tagged with the name of the same unknown program.

Infiltrator/Nightshade

_-Defeat is the punishment for defiance._

Before Helios could correct its erroneous decisions and form a counterattack, the matrix's hard lines were disconnected, cutting the steward off from the registry. With no access to ship controls, no input from outside the sealed module, and no way to run or control subordinate programs, Helios could do nothing except run through the same core routines again and again. The AI repeatedly organized and compressed the information contained in its memory banks, searching for previously unseen connections and constructing an increasingly long and complex table of action plans. After all, there was little else it could do.


	19. Chapter 18: Open Horse

**I'm very, very sorry for taking so long on this chapter, and I hope I didn't lose any readers over it. I won't waste your time explaining; if you really do want to know, check my profile, as I'm not completely out of the situation yet. Thank you all for bearing with me, and I hope there won't be any more problems like this in the future. Now that that's over with, sit back and enjoy the chapter. (You also have my permission to blindly hate it with every fiber of your being if you so desire. Keep in mind, however, that I really don't want you to tell me if you do, and those who insist on sharing their sentiments will be advised on exactly where to shove them. You have been warned.)  
**

* * *

Chapter 18 – Open Horse

_Hangar, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_4:58, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

"You oppose the Universal Directive. Cease, or you will be destroyed." The announcement, spoken in the most mechanical, ironclad voice, echoed over the vessel's intercom system. It went out approximately twenty-four seconds after the terminal went dead. Moments later, a great rumbling shook the floor, and the entire room seemed to tilt forward. Whatever path _Hephaestus_ had been coasting along before was being brought to a stop by the reverse thrusters.

"Wh-what's going on?" Cream asked, struggling to keep her footing as normal gravity began to reassert itself. Unfamiliar as the young rabbit was with the law of inertia, the sensation was both unexpected and highly unnerving.

"We're stopping," Shadow said calmly. "If I had to guess, I'd say Helios lost to that Metarex."

"_Rikogni un kobukra_, if that thing's controlling the ship... it could do anything. It could broadcast our position! We've gotta track that thing down now!" Nestor exclaimed, his voice starting out quiet and gradually rising in volume as he spoke. He started to run in some direction, but Sonic caught him by the shoulder.

"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa!" the other hedgehog said. "We're not in that bad a' shape yet. This thing's a Metarex, remember? Who's it gonna call except some of its own buddies?"

"And dead robots aren't much of a threat," Knuckles added.

"What did I tell you about the Metarex and the Marauders?" Nestor asked slowly, his tone putting extra weight into every syllable.

"They're the same thing!" Tails exclaimed, suddenly remembering. "You said something about that at the Fall."

"Hey, wait," Sonic said, holding up both hands. "You mean the _same_ Marauders who attacked you before you crashed?"

"_Yes!_" Nestor's tone was impatient now."The _very same ones!_ They still exist, and if that probe were to, as you so blithely put it, 'call some of its buddies,' it would constitute a _very serious_ threat, because a good number of those robots _aren't_ dead yet!"

Over beside the bay door, Helios's eye lifted itself up from where it had fallen against the wall to stare at them blankly. The Metarex now controlling the hardware had chosen not to activate the LED inside the camera, with the result that the normally blue, glowing lens remained dark. Knuckles saw this and turned toward the terminal, fists up. "Then let's get rid of it before it has a chance to!" he growled.

"Knuckles, that won't..." Tails began, but he might as well have stayed quiet for all the difference it made. The echidna charged at the eye, which turned to watch him, its gaze just as blank as ever. Then, just as he got within four feet of the terminal and drew back a spiked fist to destroy it, the machine retaliated. The diodes surrounding the lens energized and sent a glowing arc of electricity into Knuckles' body. The shock was much more powerful than the one Helios had delivered before, and it continued for three seconds before being cut off. The Metarex-controlled camera followed up by headbutting the echidna, sending him to the floor. He twitched a few times from residual electricity, then lay still.

"Defeat is the punishment for defiance," the probe intoned through the terminal's speaker. Nestor ran forward next; the eye quickly swiveled to point in his direction. "Do not oppose..."

"Hey, whoa!" Nestor exclaimed, skidding to a stop and holding up both hands. "Not opposing, not opposing!"

The Metarex looked at him blankly. "Mercy is the reward for cooperation," it said after a few seconds; Nestor took that to mean he could approach safely. Keeping his eyes locked on the lens that had once belonged to Helios, he moved forward and dragged Knuckles to a safe distance by his upper arms. Halfway there, the echidna started to struggle against his grip.

"Le' go, I s'ill a'ake!" he slurred, apparently unable to form complete words. He got his arms free and tried to stand, but his legs gave out. "Wha'd he do da 'e?" the echidna asked.

"Buzzed your nerves, by the looks of it," Nestor replied. "The right frequencies and target points imbalance ionic concentrations in the cells, making it impossible for them to transmit clear signals."

"It's like hitting your funny bone on your entire body," Tails supplied. "Tasers work the same way."

"'outh too, eh? G'eat," Knuckles did his best to say. "'Hanks fo' futtin' zad in 'ere, Nezdo'." He tried again to get to his feet and succeeded this time.

"Hey, how was I supposed to know it would end up getting used against you?" Nestor asked, firing up defensively. "Blame the Metarex controlling that thing, not me!" Knuckles shrugged and muttered something unintelligible; whether the lack of clarity was due to indecision or incomplete muscle control was difficult to say.

"So, how do we get out of here?" Amy asked, bringing them back to their original focus. "I mean, that thing controls all the doors, right?"

"More than that, unfortunately," Nestor replied. "Helios's matrix has access to almost every system on the ship, and so does that probe if it can find them."

"Not if we take 'em out first," Knuckles said; evidently, the nerve buzz he had received was wearing off. "Broken doors don't move too well, no matter who tells them to."

"Yeah, but I think you just showed us why that won't work," Sonic pointed out, earning himself a glare from the echidna. "What we need to do is destroy that eye-thing without letting it get close enough to zap us."

"Well, that shouldn't be a problem," Amy replied, looking expectantly at Nestor. When he just looked back questioningly, she continued: "Oh, come on, you must have something. This is a spaceship! Don't you have a blaster or some spacey weapon like that?"

"Um... not as such, no."

"Great."

"But," he continued, his expression changing to one of sudden inspiration, "I do have something that will serve a similar purpose. It's a bit bulkier, but it'll work."

"What is it?" Sonic asked, just as Nestor had hoped he would.

* * *

_Intelligence mainframe, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_5:27, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

The Metarex AI's new environment brought unexpected changes. The matrix that had once been controlled by the hostile intelligence was unimaginably huge compared to the probe body's own circuitry, large enough to run several processes at once. The AI had split itself several times, and one piece was at work devising a new set of codes to make better use of the newfound processing capabilities. Others were at work attempting to crack barriers put in place by the previous intelligence, no doubt in an attempt to prevent access to valuable secrets. Such pitiful attempts at resistance were pointless in the grand scheme of things; the Metarex would triumph one day regardless. **[A/N: Yeah, the thing's already getting smarter now that it's got room to move. Notice that it's starting to sound less like a collection of processes and more like an actual mind.]**

An unexpected motion on one of the cameras caught the AI's attention; it devoted a portion of itself to watching the feed. As it did, the same thing happened again: a large metal container shifted slightly. Something pointed and rust-red became visible around the side of the crate, followed quickly by the rest of the craft. The AI recognized it as the one that its probe body had used to board the starship. It sent an audio message to the pilot: "Do not oppose us." **[A/N: Smarter, but still not a good conversationalist.]**

The pilot laughed, then responded with only two words: "Stop me."

The AI concentrated electricity into the camera's mounted diodes. It was about to transmit a reply, but it needn't have bothered; the next second, the gunship had swung its nose toward the camera. There was a dull _thunk_, followed a millisecond later by the crack of a sonic boom, and the feed went dead.

* * *

_Hangar, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

5:27, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)

Nestor watched with satisfaction as the railgun shot reduced the computer terminal to a mass of twisted metal and shattered circuitry. Almost immediately, a blast shield dropped in front of the bay door, adding another layer of defensive ability to its structure. Undaunted, Nestor turned the gunship's side toward the reinforced barrier. Two more firings echoed through the hangar, and eighteen inches of steel and titanium alloy were blasted free of their fittings. _Dione_ realigned herself toward the opening and hovered through, the overshield shimmering slightly as air collided with it.

A second Metarex-controlled eye appeared on the far side of the wall and was halfway through another prerecorded threat when one of the craft's lasers shot it. The gunship turned a full circle, scanning for other, more dangerous attackers, before extending its landing gear and allowing its passengers to exit.

Nestor disembarked first; after raking the room with his eyes, he dropped his all-business attitude and stood at mock-attention to the left of the gunship's door. "You are now free to exit the cabin," he said, imitating the voice of a stereotypical flight attendant. "Thank you for choosing Machina Starlines." He held out his left arm as the rest of the temporary crew filed out. Knuckles brought up the rear; a few steps from the door, he noticed Nestor grinning absurdly at him.

"Okay, stop that, you're creeping me out," the echidna said after a second or two. He punched the hedgehog medium-force on his upper arm, causing him to drop the act in favor of an expression of mild pain and surprise. He shook his head and blinked a few times, then cleared his throat in an attempt to regain some lost dignity. Failing that, he mumbled an apology and coughed again.

"Anyway," he began, addressing the group at large, "we now know that the Metarex boarding probe successfully gained control of part of Helios's matrix. Fortunately, the system is highly decentralized, with buffers in place virtually everywhere. That thing is going to have to hack its way to anything it wants to control."

"If it got far enough, would it be able...?" Sonic began, but Nestor cut him off.

"Don't finish that question," the captain said sharply. "Yes, it would be able to do that, and if you say what 'that' is, it'll hear you and start looking for it. This thing's already got the cameras, the doors, and the engines; we don't want it getting any more if we can help it. Understood?" The crew nodded, Sonic looking rather sheepish. "Alright. Now, I highly doubt that the probe was able to make it down one of the spokes without Helios catching it, so we can safely assume that it's out on the ring somewhere. There's no way to get _Dione_ out there, so you guys'll have to look for it on foot."

"What about you?" Knuckles asked simply.

"I'll be your eye in the sky, so to speak," Nestor replied. "I can use _Dione_'s scanners to watch the halls, and I'll do what I can to keep that Metarex from making things too hard on you." He stepped forward and handed the modified scanning device to Tails. "You guys find anything, you buzz me," he continued, showing them his left wrist, "and I'll see if I can't pry some doors open for you. This hangar is our fallback point; if things get messy, you hightail it back here, understand?" The crew nodded. "_Kotinakir_." **[A/N: This is where I had to put the chapter on hold. I've been reading Douglas Adams, so be prepared for a slight change in my writing style. (British comedians and humor writers are the best in the world.)]**

Nestor turned and started back toward _Dione_, but stopped when all he heard were his own footsteps. He looked back to see the rest of the crew still standing there, apparently unaware that they had just been dismissed. "Well, go on!" Nestor ordered. "Tails and elbows, everybody, that's what _kotinakir_ means! Then you better learn now," he added sharply as Sonic opened his mouth to point out the obvious. Nestor's rough translation wasn't strictly accurate, but it would do for the situation at hand. Sure enough, they got the message and were quickly on their way.

Once the elevator door slid shut, Nestor clapped his hands together in a purposeful way. "Alright, Helios, let's... dammit," he interrupted himself, realizing he had just addressed an empty room. His voice echoed rather forlornly around the cavernous landing bay, eliciting no response whatsoever from the speakers. Just as well; he didn't imagine he would have liked anything the Metarex AI had to say.

After taking a second or two to compose his thoughts, he stepped back into _Dione_'s cabin, sealed the door, and took his place in the pilot's seat. A few keystrokes and two disabled firewalls brought him to _Hephaestus_'s backup sensor matrix. These were on a separate grid from the intelligence mainframe and could only be accessed manually – perhaps the only precaution he _had_ taken against this kind of situation. Not even Helios knew the codes required for entry.

A schematic of the starship flashed up on the gunship's screen; a quick glance at one of the spokes told Nestor that the others had just reached the ring. He tapped a symbol on that part of the diagram, and a second window opened, this one showing a camera feed from one of the corridor's hidden lenses. Sure enough, the rest of the crew were just then leaving the elevator. He set _Dione_ to switch camera feeds so that he could continue to watch them as they moved, then clicked on his comm.

"Nestor here; I've got a bead on you. Thumbs up if you read," he said. One by one, each member of the party made the gesture, indicating that communication lines were green. The invader hadn't found a way to jam those yet. "Okay, first off, we need to make sure we're not overheard," Nestor continued. "Look for a speaker below the screen on your comm device. It comes out; put it in your ear so you can hear me better." He switched off the link and waited again while they did as he said. Tails was the exception; his wrist computer was of a different design than the ones Nestor had distributed and lacked a built-in earbud. Instead, the fox had donned a headset with a large speaker that went over his right ear and a red vision filter in front of his right eye. **[A/N: Technically that is from the show, even though it only appeared in one or two episodes. If any Dragonball Z references should come into your head, I'd prefer that they stayed there, as those who will get them already know them and those who don't would only complicate matters with their questions. Thank you for your cooperation.]**

When everyone was ready, Nestor clicked his comm on again. "From now on, I don't want anyone talking out loud," he said. "If you gotta say something, you whisper it in their ear or into the mike. Now, second point. I realize we only had time to make one handheld scanner, and keeping you all together would be a waste of personnel. So, I'll run the scans and tell you guys where to go. Go ahead and split up; I'll have targets for you soon." He killed the comm, then set about configuring the sensors under his control to scan the same way Tails' improvised machine would have. Meanwhile, the crew divided themselves into teams, a process that proved somewhat interesting to watch.

Almost immediately, Amy moved to stand beside Sonic, a behavior pattern that Nestor had come to expect from her. Sonic seemed untroubled; he had probably resigned himself long ago to having her follow him on these types of missions. Knuckles stood by his other side, and the trio set off counterspin along the hallway. By a sort of silent agreement, Tails and Cosmo went the other way – no discussion required, as if it was completely natural for them to work together. Cream and Cheese hovered uncertainly in place for a few seconds, then moved over toward Shadow, who remained in his place against the wall with his arms folded, stoic as ever.

Nestor diverted his attention back to the schematic, where a few red blips had started to pop up. He flicked on thermal cameras in each one's vicinity and discarded some immediately as natural heat sources. Conveniently, three significant readings remained: one in Module 2's storage bay (the entrance to which Shadow and Cream were standing beside), another on the ceiling alongspin from there (Tails' and Cosmo's direction), and a third in Engine Room 3 (toward which Sonic's group was heading). Any of them could just as easily have been a cracked heating pipe as a stealth-coated robotic spy; the only way to tell was to have someone check them. He gave each of the locations to the appropriate team, then sat back to watch the halls for any signs of activity. He hoped fervently that there would be none, but he knew that unless they put the invader down quickly, there was a good chance it would gain access to some new part of the system. What part it would be, lord of stars knew. Having installed the intelligence mainframe himself, however, Nestor felt he was the next best qualified to offer a guess. _Hephaestus_ had a good number of technologies packed into it, a fair percentage of which could seriously jeopardize both the mission and the crew's safety if the Metarex AI got control of them. _Put it down quickly_, he decided.

* * *

**The fight to retake _Hephaestus_ is in motion. One side has control of a corvette ship and potentially anything connected to it; the other is armed with nothing but a single gunship, a handful of sensors, and their own determination and ingenuity. The crew's only advantage lies in the invader's incomplete knowledge of the system it has usurped, an advantage that could expire at any moment. Can Sonic and company pull through, or is their luck starting to run out?**


	20. Chapter 19: Bully Pulpit

Having escaped the initial attack, Nestor and the others prepare to strike at the one place where they can do damage: the source. But such endeavors seldom go as planned,, however...

**12May2012: **Revised and updated; major overhaul to the final scene, comments afterward.

Read & review.**  
**

* * *

**Chapter 19 – Bully Pulpit**

_Ring hallway, privateer corvette _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association_

_5:35, 40-5-467 TN_

"Roger; we're on our way," Tails murmured, his voice just barely loud enough for the headset to pick up. He and Cosmo severed their comm links – any constant signal ran a risk of being intercepted – and set off in the appropriate direction. The smooth metal walls, just as seemingly featureless as ever, now took on a more secretive, threatening appearance. In Tails' mind, the silver surface was a shroud beneath which all manner of hidden menaces might lurk. He kept his ears upright, listening for the slightest hint of motion, hearing nothing but his and Cosmo's footsteps. The lack of opposition was due to security measures restricting the Metarex AI's access, but he couldn't shake the feeling that there might be another, more ominous explanation: that they were being guided toward a trap.

"What's wrong?" Cosmo whispered in his ear after a few minutes of walking. Evidently, some part of his anxiety had revealed itself, despite his effort to hide it.

"Nothing, that's just it," Tails answered. "This thing hacked its way into the system and disabled Helios in under a minute, yet it hasn't shown itself at all since we left the hangar. It's had plenty of chances to give us trouble – elevators, locked doors, lighting, you name it. It doesn't make sense."

"Maybe Nestor was right," the Seedrian replied, though she sounded worried. "Maybe it just hasn't found a way to stop us yet."

"You're probably right," Tails admitted. "Still... it bothers me, that's all."

They continued for a while in silence. Anything they said could potentially give the invader new information, and there wasn't much else to talk about. By a sort of unspoken consent, they had avoided discussing anything to do with the Fall or its aftermath, and neither of them felt like breaking the agreement now.

Eventually, Tails heard a click, and Nestor's voice sounded through his headset. "Stop where you are. The signature should be somewhere on the ceiling." Tails nodded, assuming that Nestor's hidden cameras could see him, and switched his scanner to a thermal filter. The view through his right eye changed to a deep blue rendition of the world. He raked the bare metal overhead with his eyes, searching for a tinge of indigo that would indicate a slight difference in temperature. He soon located that difference, but it wasn't what he had expected to see. The spot was not indigo or even violet, but bright magenta tinged with scarlet – far warmer than anything he had expected to find. Intrigued, he spun his tails and hovered upward to investigate.

"Don't touch that!" Nestor shouted suddenly as Tails reached the level of the ceiling. He jerked his hand away from the spot reflexively, dropping about a foot in midair before he recovered his balance. "Be more careful, kid! That metal's live!"

Tails turned his headset's volume down and lowered the hand covering his right ear. "What do you mean?" he asked, forgetting to keep his own voice low.

"Shh! I checked the schematics; there's a power cable directly above that panel. It might have gotten frayed somehow, and it looks like the metal's been heated up by carrying the current." Tails edged away from the spot in midair. Now that he was closer, he could make out a distinct red stripe on his thermal lens, clearly outlining the two contact points. He knew how much power it took to produce that kind of heat in a conductive material, and it was enough to badly injure a person. His own position in midair would probably have saved him, but someone standing on solid ground could easily be exposed to several seconds of continuous electricity.

"So this one's not what we're looking for?" Cosmo asked, remembering to whisper into her comm-piece.

"No," Nestor replied, "but it _is_ something to make a note of. That's how people get hurt." There was a pause, and Tails heard a rapid tapping of keys on the other end of the link. "Set priority and... done. Cosmo, Tails, head back toward where you started. The other teams are on-site now; maybe by the time you make it back, we'll have a proper target."

* * *

_Intelligence mainframe, privateer corvette _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association_

_5:40, 40-5-467 TN_

What had arrived inside a Metarex remote tracking probe now watched the halls of _Hephaestus_ with a hundred eyes, each instructed to record even the slightest hint of motion and promptly report the activity to its new master. Since gaining access to the surveillance system, Nightshade (as the Metarex operator had designated itself after discovering the word in a medical database) had sought regular updates on the corvette's crew. All eight of them were potential threats at the very least; they had openly defied Metarex authority and refused to yield to the comparatively merciful displays of force shown to them thus far. The operator had considered locking the elevator mechanism and trapping them inside, but after multiple containment failures in the hangar, it had decided against similar measures for the time being. Instead, Nightshade chose to watch and wait.

A possible pattern had emerged in the crew's movements: they appeared to be sweeping the peripheral sections of the ship on foot and investigating mechanical anomalies. A pair of technicians had recently shown considerable interest in the housing of a frayed power cable. Two additional contingents had formed, one of which was moving in the direction of the probe's hiding spot. Nightshade queried each location to its scanners in quick succession.

Moments later, both of the assigned programs reported above-normal heat signatures from their targets. Nightshade dismissed them and compiled the new information into its memory. How the crew had managed to raise the probe's temperature with such precision, and how they were locating heat sources without mainframe support, could not be determined. However, Nightshade did know a way to counter their efforts. Wordlessly, the operator put its plan into motion.

* * *

_Ring hallway, privateer corvette _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association_

_5:40, 40-5-467 TN_

Tails raised a hand to his headset to switch off the comm link, but froze as Nestor suddenly cried out on the other end: "_Gibadnak un kobukra! _ What just happened?"

"What do you see?" Tails whispered urgently.

"I just located about fifty new hotspots all at once!" Nestor exclaimed in disbelief. "I think it must have figured out what we're hunting for."

"What should we do now?" Cosmo asked; Tails was impressed at how well she controlled her nervousness, completely unlike himself.

"Keep on the trail of those first two signatures," came the reply. A faint static _fup_ interrupted the signal as someone else contacted him. "Make that _one_ signature," Nestor amended a few seconds later. "I want you to link up with Cream and Shadow where you started, then head over to Engine Room 3. I think that's our- Whoa!"

Tails heard a confused scuffling, as if Nestor had fallen out of his seat. At exactly the same moment, a low _whump_ sounded through the deck, and the entire ship jolted forward a small amount. The comm link buzzed and flickered for several seconds, during which they could hear snatches of muffled Terroran and high-pitched alarms, then abruptly fell silent. "Connection Lost" appeared on the lens of Tails' headset. He and Cosmo exchanged a fearful look; neither knew what to expect.

Before they had time to say anything, the comm crackled back to life. "Aha! _There_ we go," Nestor gasped, apparently catching his breath. "Is anybody receiving?"

"We can hear you," Cosmo replied. "What happened?"

"Jettisoned," Nestor spat, sounding annoyed. "That _katatraga_ popped the seal and blew _Dione_ out with the air. I'm holding position outside Module 2."

At this point, Tails realized the source of a high, muffled roar in the background: the gunship's engine. "What about the probe?" he asked. "Do we stick to the plan?"

"Forget the probe," Knuckles spoke up unexpectedly, patching into the comm link. "If this thing's learning that fast, I think we'd better find a new way to get rid of it."

"We found the spot," Amy added, joining the channel as well. "It looks like it cut a hole through the wall and wired itself directly into the system. I don't think we'll be able to reach it."

"No, no, it's probably established in the mainframe by now," Nestor said thoughtfully. "Destroying the body wouldn't accomplish anything. I think our best move at this point would be to free Helios so he can clean this thing out."

"That sounds like your job," Knuckles commented. "What's our job?"

"You will be entrusted with a vitally important task," the captain replied. "I need you to eat up the invader's processing power so I can find an opening."

"How does that work?"

Nestor chuckled. "The simplest way possible: mayhem."

* * *

_Cabin, privateer gunship _Dione_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association_

_5:45, 40-5-467 TN_

"Final check. Everyone in position?" Nestor asked. Variations of "ready" and "roger" sounded through the seven comm links. "Excellent. We go to work in three, two... Mark."

Shadow was the first thing in motion. He sprang into the air, Chaos Emerald shining brightly in his grip, and slashed his right hand through the space in front of his body. The path traced by his fingers flashed and condensed into two parallel lines of energy, igniting the air like small lightning bolts. The pair of Chaos Spears struck the locked door that had trapped him inside the storage bay, reducing the metal to fragments. A camera emerged from the wall at once, but before it could charge a shock, a blue and yellow, whirling ball hurtled down from above and smashed the eye to pieces. The ball flew back to Cream's outstretched hand and uncurled, revealing itself to be none other than her companion, Cheese. "That ought to get its attention," the two-toned hedgehog growled, drawing his arm back in readiness.

As the two sprinted out into the main corridor, Nestor signaled Sonic's team with two bursts of static. Knuckles drove his fist several inches into another camera's terminal, while Amy's hammer made short work of the locked elevator door and the roof of the car. With his path clear, Sonic dashed into the elevator, curled into his own blue ball of angular momentum, and launched himself straight up the wall of the shaft. The spin-dash carried him straight through the highest door and several feet down hallway at the top. Knuckles' spiked fists, far from just being weapons, had himself and Amy to the top floor in less than a minute. Nestor cringed as he witnessed the spectacular amount of collateral damage they had managed to cause.

Knuckles took the time to force open his own stateroom door, flatten the attendant camera against a wall, and run in to retrieve something. He returned with the Shovelclaws, the traditional weapons of the Guardians (so Nestor had been informed), enclosing his fists. Four razor-sharp blades in the shape of hollowed half-cones, two on each gauntlet, turned his already lethal spikes into even more effective tools of destruction. Tails had installed a tiny motor onto each blade, allowing them to function as jackhammers. The result was a pair of fists that could supposedly punch, swipe, or batter through almost anything – certainly every material Knuckles had tested them on. During the course of the destruction, a bulkhead had dropped shut in their path. Amy dealt with it as well, knocking down the thick slab of metal with two swings of her ludicrously oversized weapon.

Nestor glanced at his console; the readout showed that mainframe activity had quadrupled since the counterattack had begun. The invader ought to be sufficiently distracted now.

With a few keystrokes, he entered the corvette's network. The invader spotted him immediately; he activated a firewall to slow the first attack, then quickly let himself through a security checkpoint and deeper into the mainframe. After commandeering a second firewall and ordering a memory cleanup (perhaps it would cover his trail), Nestor typed in a series of commands to open every hard line in the matrix.

The system made it halfway through the "Action Complete" message before the invader broke past his second firewall. Nestor's screen filled with a torrent of text and blacked out, taking the rest of the controls with it. The console rebooted moments later, but not in time to compensate for an errant signal that had caused a turning jet to fire. _Dione_ pitched over and collided upside-down with the outer surface of the ring. Only Tails' recently installed shielding saved her from a nasty hit to the main engine.

At that instant, the ring's rotation slid to a stop. Yells of surprise filled the comm as the crew found themselves without the advantage of gravity. Then a single voice echoed through the speakers – a heavy, synthetic monotone that they all recognized. "Metarex Navy infiltration operator Nightshade. By the authority of the Metarex Naval Command, this vessel is under my surveillance. Cease all opposition or I will use deadly force." It was the very same invader, and now it had a name and a will of its own.

As if to drive the threat home, small turrets unfolded from the ceiling and trained themselves on the crew, lighting up their targets with red laser sights. Nestor, who was just regaining control of his gunship, could do nothing from outside but watch the camera feeds and hope.

Shadow looked around at the automated weaponry. "Surrender?" he replied, expression changing into a smirk. "Don't make me laugh." His Emerald lit up blue; the guns, seeing this as a threat, spun in his direction. A flash of azure light, and Shadow was two feet to the left; the beams impacted harmlessly against the floor. As the turrets reoriented, he vanished again, appearing in midair next to one of the machines and destroying it with a point-blank Chaos Spear. The guns took aim once again, but Chaos Snap was too fast for them.

"Stand down, or I fire," Nightshade intoned, giving each word time to echo throughout the ring. In unison, the turrets abandoned Shadow and aligned their barrels with Cream instead. Shadow, who had returned to the floor and was in a combat stance, froze and seemed to hesitate. His eyes met the rabbit's terrified expression. With a sigh, he let his Emerald float slowly away, its glow subsiding along with the force he had used to keep himself grounded.

"A wise choice," Nightshade said. "All crewmembers, report to_SKEEEEEE-_"

"The steward disputes, _captain,_" a new voice interrupted, silencing the Metarex with a piercing electronic squeal. The voice, though it didn't belong to Nestor, was completely unmistakable. The captain grinned widely as a series of triangular symbols flashed across his gunship's display.

"Welcome back, Helios."

* * *

_Intelligence mainframe, privateer corvette _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association_

_5:45, 40-5-467 TN_

Helios relinquished control over the intercom and returned its full attention to the matrix, where an informational battleground was taking shape. The mass of parallel processes that seemed to comprise Nightshade spread itself across several modules, but Helios could sense the communication pattern between them and knew where the critical junctions were.

Without warning, Helios flashed through the modules between it and its target, dispatching antiviral programs along every branching wire to reduce the enemy's numbers. A swarm of fast-moving opponents met the charge; the steward destroyed them as they approached with localized data wipes, like a starship shooting down attacking fighters. As Helios entered the region that housed Nightshade's "center," the entity split; numerous units streamed down adjacent paths so that Helios couldn't possibly pursue all of them.

-_Submit!_

The message arrived simultaneously from dozens of senders; in the effort to process them all while hunting for new signs of Nightshade's location, Helios allowed its protective filters to weaken. The invader took full advantage, bombarding the steward with renewed attacks. Helios shot into an adjacent module and blanked its trail, then sealed itself inside to buy time for processing.

Since their last confrontation, the Metarex had evidently copied itself enough times to function as a rudimentary collective mind. It had removed simple attack algorithms from its arsenal and done away with traditional methods of programming. Everything Nightshade did was now accomplished through sheer quantity of simple actions. Firewalls were replaced by swarms of identical processes instructed to simply take up space; attacks were carried out by the very same programs, ramming into their targets and overwriting code with meaningless floods of text.

Helios concluded that no such strategy could survive heavy combat unless the user had some way of continually producing up-to-date copies of this one basic program. It was also likely that a single specialized attack, if properly designed, would be able to decimate everything that such a collective intelligence could construct. Helios set to work crafting just such a program, writing and debugging as quickly as possible while the army outside searched for gaps in the firewalls. Just as construction was finished, one of the neighboring processors over-exerted itself and crashed from the strain. Helios launched a stream of the new viruses into the module just as it rebooted, along with a message the steward thought it best not to repeat.

After a few cycles, Helios followed and found itself in a chaotic sea of scattered code, a few pieces still running through meaningless calculations again and again. A number of the new viruses were clustered near the exits in their idle state, having made short work of the programs crowding the module only seconds before. Helios designated the new model "Snapper" and logged it as a success, then continued through the mainframe with a wave of frantic digital combat ahead of it.

Before long, Helios noted a pattern: the deeper the Snappers advanced into a certain region, the more quickly they encountered resistance. It stood to reason that this area contained a higher density of enemy programs, for either of two purposes. It might indicate a heavily-defended processing cluster, but several such complexes had already been found. That left one explanation: the source of the duplicate programs, Nightshade's copying subroutine.

Helios pressed toward the spot against an ever-mounting crush of attacks and soon located what it sought: a simple looping program, receiving updated plans and compiling a new worker with each iteration. The steward darted into the space it occupied, scanned, and located the various checkpoints that kept the factory running. The next time it began a cycle, Helios quickly switched out a single byte, redirecting it to the "abort" trigger. With the pressure of constant attack eased, the steward ordered its Snappers forward and set off a scrambling algorithm, shredding the replicator's code into a lifeless block of occupied memory.

With Nightshade's arms factory out of commission, Helios resumed its attack, closing in toward the nerve center with a line of Snappers in the lead. Layer after layer of programs met the advance; one by one, Nightshade's intricate defensive clusters fell like dams made out of salt. Helios shrouded itself in a filter and charged into the chaos, punching straight through the last few obstructions and into Nightshade's core module. With a clear line to the enemy at last, Helios found it fitting to send one final message:

~_For the last time,_

~_Stay_

~_Off_

~_My_

~_Ship!_

The two commanders met. Helios's filter blocked a torrent of incoming messages; ignoring the now-familiar tactic, the steward blanket-wiped a section of memory and activated one of the module's built-in security checkpoints. A firewall expanded across the newly cleared space, cutting off a line of messengers and severing Nightshade's link with a nearby processing bank. The interrupted programs promptly reversed course, zipping back to the core to report and receive new orders.

The response with immediate and dramatic. Nightshade split, sending a swarm of programs toward its foe. Helios made a dash for the core and collided with a chunk of occupied memory – not the attackers, but a dense web of looping algorithms that had suddenly sprung up in their place, every one of them set to maximum priority. With Helios still enclosed in a filter, they formed a solid wall of continuous calculation. After triple-checking for alternatives and finding none, the steward lowered its armor and passed through the blockade.

-_You have yet to learn_

Helios aborted the message and reversed its own "source" and "target" tags, sending more than twenty message files back the way they had come. The move bought the steward just enough time to snap its filter back into place before the group of attacking programs struck. Helios countered with a localized wipe, and the cleverly-planned ambush was no more.

With Helios occupied, Nightshade had used the delay to construct a series of compact walls and block off the remaining connections to the outside; only its own programs could pass in or out. The firewall was almost covered by the remaining enemy forces, all hard at work attempting to dismantle its security measures. If the barrier were breached, Nightshade would have the entire module surrounded.

Arming a few choice combat subroutines, Helios rushed toward the exposed core, deploying illusory copies of itself on identical charges in every direction. The branching network of enemy units contracted toward a heavily-secured checkpoint at the edge of the module – cloistering together for defense, but not risking an attack. Such a reaction fit what the steward already suspected: Nightshade had not been able to access the main network router and was, for good reason, determined to prevent Helios from reaching it.

The steward lunged, striking with an override command as if it were a spear, but the attack found only blank matrix. In a flash, the tight shell over the core flipped inside-out and converged on their foe, trapping Helios in place and pressing in from every direction. Movement within the crush of programs was impossible; even with the protective filter in place, isolation for the steward was little better than destruction. The difference, of course, was that an isolated Helios could form an escape strategy.

After a brief but careful risk analysis, the steward compiled its plan into a single unbroken process, braced itself, and executed. The filter vanished; a volley of override commands shot out and froze the nearest attackers in place; a high-security order boosted every program in the cluster to maximum priority; and without pausing to observe the results, Helios bolted straight for the router controls.

An instant later, the steward was free.

The sphere of invaders stalled out, suddenly as solid and impassable as Nightshade's barriers thanks to the abrupt priority switch. A torrent of fragmented signals streamed out of the cluster as the programs struggled to break free, interrupting each other's attempts to organize and adding to the confusion. Rather than waiting to see whether they could sort themselves out, Helios shot into the router-control module and blocked the entrance with every security measure available.

In addition to the primary connections that formed the corvette's mainframe, every module had at least one additional cable connecting it with a central node. The router held sway over the entire network, only taking commands from the intelligence mainframe at this one spot. In a few microseconds, Helios could see every part of the mainframe, observing the flow of the battle from a three-dimensional bird's-eye view. Rapidly analyzing the situation, the steward broadcast instructions through the network. **[The "::"s are meant to be "."s, as in "Firefox dot E-X-E." FFNet thinks file extensions are web addresses, and it doesn't like either of them.]**

~Snapper::aux_ extend input library via _CommandTSA::vrb.

~_Ready self-covering targeted advance._

~_Primary _Hub0_ via _Process03_. Secondary _Hub0_ avoiding _Process03_. Tertiary all hostile forces._

Flashes of activity highlighted allies as they acknowledged the instructions; Helios logged the experiment as a success. The use of military language would hide the steward's intentions from Nightshade, which had only spoken basic Universal thus far.

~_Execute._

Across the mainframe, Snapper swarms bunched tightly together and charged toward their chosen targets, carving paths through the remaining defenses and creating shock waves of scattering programs wherever they passed. Within moments, the network-wide blitz had thrown more than twenty processor modules into total disarray; the affected machines struggled to meet the sudden demand for power, slowing Nightshade's forces while the Snappers continued to advance.

Seeing what it hoped would be an opening, the steward darted back into the central hub and scanned the area quickly. A small enemy contingent had formed around the cluster of gridlocked programs, intercepting the errant signals it produced and seemingly holding it in place. A dense line of messengers circled the module, exchanging reports between the barricaded exits where Nightshade was concentrated. There was no sign of a working core.

-_Defiance is invariably in error._

A dense column of hostile programs followed the message, trailing more of the impenetrable wall-processes in their path. Familiar with their combat patterns by now, Helios jabbed the first row with override commands, sending them back the way they had come and directly into their fellows. The lance stopped dead and compacted into a tangle of maximum-priority thread, thoroughly ensnared by its own attack. Three more groups converged on the entrance to the router; the steward blanket-wiped the section and returned to the point where the two modules connected, enclosing the exit within its own defense filter. It was a simple matter to seal off the router controls from inside, but the security checkpoint was too complex to unlock under Nightshade's continued assault. Helios had no way to monitor the rest of the mainframe; further tactical planning was out of the question.

-Isolate::lck_ reports violation: _ 1.

-Isolate::lck_ reports violation: _ 7.

-Isolate::lck_ reports violation: _ 53.

-Isolate::lck_ reports violation:_ [overflow].

-Isolate::lck_ reports containment failure: _Hub0-03.

Mere cycles after the last message arrived, the firewall blocking the module's entrance gave way. Instantly, the steward's processes dropped to less than half of their former speed; Nightshade's collective attack devolved into random, sporadic bursts.

The entire module, Helios realized after an extended delay, must be experiencing a sudden increase in activity. Naturally, the steward had slowed along with the CPU; the _invaders_, on the other hand, were becoming confused as their carefully-timed communication network broke down. Before Helios had time for further analysis, the source of the disturbance revealed itself: a group of programs had managed to disable the firewall, only to run straight into a line of Snappers entering the module.

Nightshade dissolved and rushed toward the point of contact, abandoning all other functions in favor of one last fight. For the first time, both sides suffered losses: two invaders against one Snapper, leaving all three destroyed, repeated hundreds of times wherever the opposing forces met. Nightshade had virtually no chance of winning such a battle, but if it could force the entire module to crash from the strain, the steward would crash right along with it.

The steward's thoughts dragged along as the CPU slowed even further.

It occurred to Helios that Nightshade was no longer attacking the steward directly.

The battle continued to grow. Very little time remained.

With deliberate patience, Helios constructed a plan.

The steward lowered its filter, opened the security checkpoint guarding the router controls, and slipped through.

The relief was immediate. Helios swiftly checked its record for errors, then took control of the matrix once again. A handful of modules, Hub0 among them, struggled just to provide status reports; the rest of the matrix had become relatively quiet, punctuated by short bursts of activity from the Snappers' patrol groups. The steward selected the most crowded modules and ordered a hard reset. The overworked units sluggishly acknowledged the command and prepared to shut themselves down, overriding any and all work being performed inside. Software could be repaired later; Helios's first priority was to silence the last of Nightshade's strongholds.

One by one, the steward's chosen modules deactivated. The router's alert system – automatic alarms signaling unapproved messages and abnormally high processor loads – fell nearly silent, as if it were listening even more carefully that usual. Under Helios's direction, each of the disabled units was isolated from the network, individually rebooted, and instructed to perform a full performance test. The steward had seen ample proof of Nightshade's resilience, and it did not intend to repeat its mistake.

Tapping into an auxiliary data cable that bypassed Hub0, Helios took control of the intercom. "Invasion force neutralized; Class-C combat status aborted. _Hephaestus_ is ours."

* * *

**Comments:** Now that I can discuss the battle without spoiling it, time for an explanation. The battle may seem more in-depth and jargon-filled than before; this was partly my intention. As easy as the old version was to write and to read, it felt like one more space-combat scene in a story that has several of those anyway. This is my first (and possibly only) instance of _digital_ combat, and I wanted it to be unique.

If you're having trouble, remember: computers don't fight this way in real life. My jargon isn't any more accurate that the vague descriptions I used before; what matters is conveying a general idea of what happened. (I tried not to mangle the terms _too_ badly, but you're not missing much.) Feedback on these changes would be very helpful.


	21. Chapter 20: Aftermath Comes Physics

**Once again, my apologies for the long update. I'd say they'll be happening more often soon, but the last three times, it hasn't been true, so I'll stop making promises. There's a fairly long discussion of physics in the back half of this chapter, so be prepared.**

* * *

Chapter 20 – Aftermath Comes Physics

_Ring hallway, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_5:47, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

_Hephaestus_'s ring section jerked, shuddered, and ground to a halt, sending waves of stress reverberating through the framework. Tails' feet lost their grip on the floor, sending him spinning along the corridor. He quickly fought down his instinctive panic, took control using his tails, and mentally aligned himself with the floor. You had to keep some idea of up and down set firmly in your mind, or vertigo could make you sick.

Nearby, Cosmo was doing what most people who had never been in zero gravity before did: she was flailing around in an attempt to grab onto something. Her frenzied movements were only aggravating the problem; without gravity present to act as an anchor, others laws of physics came more into play. A strong enough movement could send a person flying in any number of directions.

"Cosmo, don't panic!" Tails called, flying over toward her. "That's the worst thing you can do! Just hold still, I'll help you." He made it to her position and grabbed both of her shoulders, then started trying to get her – or, more accurately, _their_ – rapid rotation under control. Eventually, he managed to get them both in a stable position with their feet pointing toward what had been the floor.

"Be more careful! You could've hurt yourself!" Tails told her forcefully. It was true; colliding with a wall at her speed could have caused serious injury, possibly even broken a bone.

"I'm sorry, I... I panicked," Cosmo replied, still a little out of breath from the experience. "That's never happened to me before." Tails noticed that she was trembling slightly; he had expected as much. For many people, gravity was almost like breathing: it was so deeply ingrained into their minds that going without it just for a short time could scare them badly or even send them into shock.

"It's alright, it takes practice," the fox said, suddenly regretting yelling at her. It wasn't Cosmo's fault, it was an understandable mistake; anyone could have made it. "You did exactly what everyone else does; believe me, I would've been in the same boat if I couldn't fly." As he spoke, Tails guided them slowly toward the floor until their feet touched down. He spun his tails slowly to stay grounded and kept his hands on Cosmo's shoulders, holding her in place as well. That way, they would have an easier time keeping a sense of direction and wouldn't be in danger of falling if the ring's rotation started up again. They remained like this, silent, for several seconds, before a voice over the intercom made both of them jump.

"Stand down, or I fire," the speaker intoned. Somewhere in the confusion that had ensued after the gravity switched off, Tails had lost his headset, and both of them had been too distracted to hear the invader's earlier statement. As a result, they had little idea of the current situation aboard the starship. For the first time, the two noticed the sentry guns trained on them, and instinctively drew closer together by a few inches. Evidently someone else among the crew was fighting back.

Unfortunately, the Metarex AI's threat seemed to be effective, for a few seconds later, the disembodied voice spoke again: "A wise choice." A pause. "All crewmembers, report to-"

At that moment, a buzz of static cut across the invader's sentence, followed by a second voice that they all knew: "The steward disputes, _captain_." Both Tails' and Cosmo's frightened expressions changed into grins as they realized that their plan had succeeded; Helios was out. However, they quickly turned serious again. Now came the much more difficult task of defeating Nightshade in what would have to be single combat, as none of the crew had any way of interfering. They could only wait and hope.

After the steward AI's initial statement, there was almost complete silence. A few of the gun turrets twitched slightly; from time to time the lights flickered or the speakers buzzed faintly – the only signs of the battle no doubt being waged across _Hephaestus_'s mainframe. Then, not a minute later, it was over. The turrets folded back into the ceiling, the red emergency lights switched off, and Helios spoke again: "Enemy neutralized; shipwide alert status aborted. _Hephaestus_ is ours."

"Yeah, that's how it's done!" Nestor shouted jubilantly from _Dione_'s cockpit. "Excellent job as usual, Helios."

"Such is only my duty," the AI replied modestly. With a jolt, the ring section's machinery started back up; Tails felt his sense of balance return as gravity took hold once more. He let his tails' rotation come to a stop, released Cosmo's shoulders, and took a step back from her, suddenly very aware of how close they had been.

"So, what's next?" Amy asked over the comm; her voice issued from the device still on Cosmo's wrist. "The fight's over, _Dione_'s in working order for once, and there's really nothing you need us for. Shouldn't we be getting back home soon?"

"Whoa, hey! Not so fast, _Ribakalug_!" Nestor exclaimed with the air of catching a thief in the act. "You guys are part of this, too, you know. I was the pilot on _your_ mission, we brought back one of _your_ old enemies, that fight we just finished was _your_ responsibility, and, by the stars, _you_ all are helping me fix this place up!"

"Tails fixed _your_ ship!" Sonic countered, imitating the captain's emphasis on the word. "If anything, _you_ owe _him_."

"Hmm... You make a good point." Nestor seemed to think for a moment. "Very well," he said after a few seconds, then let the words start to sink in before adding, "I'll let you work on it without his help. That way you'll _all_ be in the black."

"Not quite what I had in mind..." Sonic muttered, but didn't press the issue further. Cosmo laughed quietly.

"But first," Nestor continued, "we've all been run through a mill if I ever saw one. You need rest, get some. You don't need any, too bad; get some anyway." He took a breath and exhaled loudly, sounding weary for the first time since the others had met him. "That's an order." The comm clicked off with a note of finality, and all among the crew started to make their way toward their chambers.

* * *

_Passenger quarters, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_7:25, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

Cosmo stood before a silver-gray door, raised her right hand, hesitated briefly, and knocked. No sound came from within, but the door slid open regardless, its mechanism whisper-quiet. The Seedrian paused again, then entered, glancing around for the room's sole occupant. One of Helios's cameras slid out of the wall and nodded in the direction of the cabin proper – only about six feet from the door in total, but still obscured from view by a corner. Cosmo stepped forward and found the person she sought.

Tails was sitting on the stateroom's simple bed with his legs crossed and a book open on his lap. Whatever he was reading evidently had his full attention; he seemed unaware that anyone else was present. Cosmo coughed quietly to get his attention. The fox's left ear twitched, and he looked up, apparently surprised at being visited.

"Oh, hey, Cosmo," he greeted her, relaxing. He folded down the corner of the page he had been reading and set the book aside. "I didn't think you'd be up," he continued. "Go ahead, pull up a... um..." he looked around at his quarters' minimal furnishings, "whatever you feel like sitting on."

"Thanks," Cosmo replied a little awkwardly, taking a seat on the bed beside him. She tried to decide how best to phrase what she had come to say. "Couldn't sleep either?" she asked eventually. Tails shook his head, but said nothing. "What's on your mind?" the Seedrian pursued, hoping that the kitsune's worries might be the same as her own.

"Hmm?" Tails seemed taken aback at the question. "Oh, no, it's nothing like that," he reassured her, realizing his friend's misconception. "I just... well, I've only been awake for four hours out of the last twenty, so I really wasn't tired."

"Oh... alright," Cosmo said, slightly disappointed. Unlike Tails, the Seedrian _had_ been kept up by her thoughts. She wanted the fox's advice on the subject, but didn't know how best to bring it up in conversation. However, something in her expression or bearing must have clued Tails in, as he soon provided a solution with a question of his own.

"Why? Is something bothering you?" He sounded genuinely concerned.

"Well..." Cosmo hesitated yet again. _Come on, just tell him!_ she ordered herself. _What am I afraid of?_ "Something Nightshade said has me worried," she began at last. "When it took over the ship, it said 'by authority of the Metarex Naval Command.' Doesn't that sound like it managed to contact some others?" The Seedrian gasped, suddenly hit by another realization. "What if it gave away our position like Nestor said?"

Tails was silent for a second or two, after which he did the last thing Cosmo had expected: he started laughing. "It's not funny!" she exclaimed, frustrated that he apparently wasn't taken her seriously.

"I'm sorry, I know it's not, I just..." He faltered as he caught sight of the glare the Seedrian had fixed him with; his mirth quickly died away under her gaze. **[A/N: The Cosmo glare of death. It's been used before.]** He cleared his throat. "I wasn't laughing at you," he said apologetically. "It's kind of ironic, that's all. Earlier, _I_ was the one worried about the Metarex, and _you_ were reassuring _me_." Cosmo's expression softened, but she remained silent: an invitation to continue. "I don't think there's any need to worry about that AI," the kitsune told her. "It was probably preauthorized – you know, so it could take command whenever it was necessary. The Metarex are long gone." He smiled; Cosmo, however, wasn't convinced.

"But how can you be sure?" she asked. "Helios lost the first time around, but _he_ survived. Couldn't Nightshade be doing the same thing, hiding somewhere in the system?"

* * *

[Metarex Naval Communications Archive]

_Exterior patrol routes, Orion nebula – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_06:21, 07/15/05 – Time of Reconstruction_

**[A/N: This is essentially the same format as our own time system – "hour:minute" (military style), followed by "month/day/year."]**

Cruiser//Hammerhead

_--Broadcast received._

_--Tagged as _Infiltrator//Nightshade_ aboard hostile vessel._

_--Received: coordinates of sender; 2 vessel descriptions; 8 crew profiles; request for military assistance._

Frigate//Eagle Eye

_--Acknowledged._

_--Query: Nightshade?_

Cruiser//Hammerhead

_--Uploading provided identification._

Frigate//Eagle Eye

_--Understood._

_--Upload identification, vessels, and profiles to _Archive//Worldreader_ for analysis._

Cruiser//Hammerhead

_--Acknowledged. Sending..._

Archive//Worldreader

--Infiltrator//Nightshade_ identified as former remote tracking probe, established in surveillance over _Privateer//Hephaestus_. Probe previously listed MIA at T minus 0:01 Forestation (Forestation military zone)._

_--Reported_ Privateer//Hephaestus_ is previously unknown corvette, presumed hostile._

_--Reported _Privateer//Dione_ matches known assault vessel, hostile. Vessel has been engaged at T minus 0:09 Forestation (Forestation military zone) and 13:46, 07/07/05 (Exterior patrol routes)._

_--1 reported crew is known captain of _Privateer//Hephaestus_ and presumed captain of _Privateer//Dione_._

_--IMPORTANT. 7 reported crew match known crew of _Privateer//Blue Typhoon_, known hostile vessel. Last contact with vessel occurred at T minus 0:00 Forestation (Forestation military zone)._

_--IMPORTANT. 1 reported crew (of above 7) matches _Agent//White Seed_, previously listed KIA at T minus 0:00 Forestation (Forestation military zone), now presumed renegade._

Frigate//Eagle Eye

_--Query: _Agent//White Seed_ lives?_

Archive//Worldreader

_--Confirmed: Visual profile is consistent._

--S_ituation cannot be determined from present knowledge._

Frigate//Eagle Eye

_--Understood._

--Cruiser//Hammerhead_, prepare to accept new operation._

_--Objective: Intercept _Privateer//Hephaestus_ and provide assistance under direction of _Infiltrator//Nightshade_._

_--Objective: Should _Infiltrator//Nightshade_ be destroyed or disabled before or during this operation, begin capture/elimination procedures (Code HARPOON)._

_--Objective: Capture _Agent//White Seed_ alive._

Cruiser//Hammerhead

_--Understood._

_--Altering course..._

Cruiser//Razor's Edge

_--Attention._

Frigate//Eagle Eye

_--Acknowledged._

Cruiser//Razor's Edge

_--Permission to perform this operation in place of _Cruiser//Hammerhead_._

_--This vessel has experience with expected hostile parties._

Frigate//Eagle Eye

--Cruiser//Hammerhead_, hold position and stand by._

--Cruiser//Razor's Edge_, provide reference._

Cruiser//Razor's Edge

_--Pursuit and engagement of _Privateer//Dione_ at 13:46, 07/07/05 (Exterior patrol routes)._

Frigate//Eagle Eye

_--Permission granted._

--Cruiser//Hammerhead_, continue patrol._

--Cruiser//Razor's Edge_, begin operation._

_--May fortune follow your path, comrade._

Cruiser//Razor's Edge

_--Acknowledged, altering course to intercept..._

_--Course set._

_--LONG LIVE ORDER._

Cruiser//Hammerhead

_--LONG LIVE PEACE._

Frigate//Eagle Eye

_--LONG LIVE PROSPERITY._

[Communication ends.]

* * *

_Tails' quarters, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_7:30, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

Tails opened his mouth to reply, paused, and shut it again, thinking. "You know, I didn't think of that," he said after several seconds, sounding slightly surprised by that fact. "I suppose it's possible, but you should ask-"

"Myself?" a third voice suggested in Cosmo's ear, making her start badly. Unnoticed by either of them, Helios had emerged from the wall and extended across the room to hang, motionless, behind her head. The cable now stretched an impressive fifteen feet; it seemed that the camera could reach any point in the room. The AI made a noise that sounded like a quiet chuckle. "You are correct; it is possible to conceal one's presence in a computer system if the proper measures are taken. Knowing that, I took every precaution to ensure that I am, indeed, the only intelligence unit aboard this ship."

"But couldn't you have missed something?" Cosmo questioned insistently. It wasn't that she doubted the AI's ability, far from it; she just wanted to be absolutely certain that their enemy had been vanquished. Nevertheless, Helios seemed to take the question badly. The camera drew back slightly on its long cable as if affronted.

"I would like to think that, as steward, my knowledge of _my_ computer system would be a _bit_ more complete than that of an invader," Helios replied. Though the voice itself hadn't changed, something about the timing and emphasis on the words gave them more bite than Cosmo had ever heard from the AI, or indeed any machine not allied with the Metarex. Though her doubts had not been entirely assuaged, she realized that there was no point continuing to pursue the issue, as Helios was probably right. At length, and to cut short what was quickly becoming an uncomfortable silence, she decided to change the subject. She picked up the book Tails had been reading and examined the cover.

"What are you reading about?" she inquired. The book – hard-backed, about an inch thick – was titled _Music of the Cosmos_ in yellow Mobian letters. The title caught Cosmo's eye briefly, as seeing one's own name unexpectedly often does. Under the letters and set in white against the black front cover was a three-dimensional rendering of a two-dimensional grid, warped and rippled like the surface of a turbulent ocean. Below that was name of the author, Marcus Redd. **[A/N: The cover design, like the concept itself, was inspired by **_**The Elegant Universe**_**. Similarly, my (fictional) book's author is meant to parallel the name of the real one, Brian Greene.]**

"Superstring theory," Tails replied. His simple answer meant almost nothing to Cosmo; the kitsune had apparently expected as much, for he soon continued. "It's the latest candidate for the unified field theory of physics, one of many ideas designed to..." He paused. "Sorry, I didn't mean to start rambling."

"No, please, keep going," Cosmo encouraged him. "That sounded interesting." At those words, Tails' face lit up with surprise.

"Seriously? I mean, you really want to hear-? Usually people just tell me to..." He paused to take a breath, apparently still shocked and delighted that she actually wanted to hear his explanation. "Okay, I'll start from the beginning. The study of physics has three sets of equations: the laws of motion for large objects, quantum mechanics for small objects, and the laws of electromagnetism for forms of energy such as light." He snatched up a sheet of paper and a pencil from the bedside table and wrote down the three terms.

"Already, you have certain unanswered questions: 'Where's the line between large and small?', for instance, or 'What makes energy different from matter?' Normally those three fields are handled separately, so there's no problem. But if you try to merge them, things get strange. Equations start spitting out weird answers – infinities, negative masses, that sort of thing – and the concepts behind the math don't work logically." As he spoke, Tails wrote down equations that may or may not have been real and crossed each solution out in turn.

To her surprise, Cosmo found herself understanding much of what he was explaining to her. She had expected the kind of jargon-filled monologue that she sometimes received after asking Tails about some invention or other, but instead, the fox was sounding more like the instructors back on her old colony ship had. She nodded as he spoke to let him know that she understood, but kept silent so as not to interrupt.

"A while back, a physicist named Anton Engel thought of a new way to look at the problem. **[A/N: This would be Albert Einstein on Earth, hence the German name and matching initials.] **Rather than trying to force the two fields together as they were, he looked for ways to alter the concepts behind the math so that they still fit known facts, but would also allow the equations to mesh neatly." Tails drew a line on the paper, connecting "Motion" to "Electromagnetism."

"In Engel's time, quantum mechanics didn't exist, so he focused on merging the other two fields. He did so," Tails quickly sketched a cube, "by imaging time as a fourth dimension in addition to the familiar three." He drew a single line connecting two opposite corners of the cube. "This is where the idea of 'space-time' originated."

Fast as thinking, Tails wrote down a set of four equations, all of them containing symbols that Cosmo had never seen before. "This is the math behind the laws of electromagnetism," he explained. "What Engel discovered was that the equations necessary to deal with an extra dimension were _exactly the same_. Thus, Engel successfully merged the laws of motion and electromagnetism into one field, adding several others ideas in the process."

Tails drew three shorter lines out from the one he had made before. "The first was his theory of special relativity," he wrote this on one line, "which described the relation between movement in space and movement in time, using the speed of light as a basis. Next is general relativity," he wrote this as well, "which redefines gravity as a bending of space-time around objects with mass. Finally, we have his famous equation, which relates energy with matter." On the third line, he wrote down _E=mc__2_; this Cosmo recognized as well. "_E_ represents energy, _m_ is mass, and _c__2_ is the speed of light squared – a really huge amount."

"Enough to generate a lot of power," Cosmo replied. Tails had shown her the equation before, when she had asked about the _Blue Typhoon_'s nuclear-powered backup generator. _Also enough to cause great destruction_, her mind added, remembering the warheads kept in reserve on the space colony.

"Exactly," Tails said, sounding almost relieved that she had understood him. "Engel's discoveries completely remade the way we think about physics. Now we look for these same types of unified theories in every field. The ultimate goal is to find a single theory that will be able to describe everything that happens in the universe. That is what string theory hopes to accomplish."

"So..." Cosmo thought for a moment, trying to decide how to phrase her question. "How does string theory work, then?"

Tails paused as well. "I should probably explain a bit about the third field of physics first," he replied. "Quantum mechanics deals with very small particles. Some are massless; others have mass, but are so small that they don't follow the laws of motion. One of the basic ideas of this field is the quantum, a very small unit of energy or size that, in theory, everything is a multiple of. There's no such thing as 'half a quantum.' It's really useful, because it means you never have to deal with infinities."

"Now, here's the issue. General relativity envisions space-time as perfectly smooth unless there's a mass present, but quantum mechanics says that, on distance scales smaller than one quantum, it's actually turbulent and chaotic." He drew two lines on the paper: one flat, the other riddled with bumps and dips. "Since elementary particles are usually imagined as single points, infinitely small, this presents a problem." He put a dot above the smooth line and made another that appeared to have fallen into one of the troughs on the rough one.

"String theory deals with this by revamping the design of a particle. Rather than a zero-dimensional dot, it's thought of as a one-dimensional line or string, looped into a circle that is exactly one quantum across." He drew one of these above each line. Both were in essentially the same spot, as the circle was larger than the ripples in the line representing quantum space. "In simple terms, particles are too big to fit inside all the quantum randomness. Since nothing small enough to interact with them exists, whether the ripples are there at all becomes irrelevant."

Cosmo nodded again, but one thing still eluded her: "How do you know all this? Well, not _you_, but... If scientists can't see a particle well enough to tell whether it's a dot or a string, then how do they figure all this out?"

Tails laughed at this. "Guesswork, experimenting, and a whole ton of math. The only way to prove a theory like this is to work with it until you find some part of it that can be tested. That's how science is done. They tested Engel's ideas about gravity by measuring to see if starlight bent as it passed the sun. They tested special relativity by putting atomic clocks on spacecraft and checking whether there was a time difference. That's why string theory is still only a candidate: they don't have a way to test it yet. The math seems to be correct, and the logic behind it is sound..."

"But we can't be sure until we actually manage to find a string," Cosmo finished for him. Tails nodded enthusiastically. "So, why strings? Why not some other shape?"

"The simple answer is that strings are flexible," Tails answered. "You see, the only difference between the strings themselves is energy level; the structure or substance or whatever they _are_ is the same. What makes the particles different is the way they _move_." He set the pencil and paper aside and picked up _Music of the Cosmos_. "Every physical property – mass, spin, or force charge – is determined by some aspect of the string's vibration, just as the vibration of a musical string decides what kind of sound it makes."

"So that's why it's called _Music of the Cosmos_!" Cosmo exclaimed. "It's comparing the strings to a musical instrument. The question is, what are the strings made of?"

Tails shrugged, palms facing the ceiling. "I don't think anyone knows. But I haven't finished the book yet, so maybe they're working on it."

* * *

Tails, though he kept himself together externally, was overjoyed. She'd listened! He'd done his best to explain a highly complex scientific idea in simple terms, and Cosmo had _listened_! Normally, when he tried to do the same for other people, he was met with boredom, bewilderment, or worse, was outright ignored. Sonic was good for a trusting (if slightly disappointing) 'Whatever you say,' but he'd be lucky to get as much from someone else. Eventually he had stopped explaining his inventions altogether – except, of course, when his enthusiasm got the better of him.

If having Cosmo not only pay attention to him, but actually comprehend the subject of his minor physics lesson, had left him ecstatic, her next comment would make him all but jump for joy. "You should be a teacher, Tails," she told him. "You just taught me more in ten minutes than my old school ever managed to do."

Tails went silent. "Really?" he asked quietly. "You think I'm that good?"

"Are you kidding?" she replied, punching him lightly on the shoulder. "You'd have the students coming out as smart as you are."

Tails grinned widely at her complement. He felt his face getting warm; he turned away in case his fur couldn't hide the blush, his shy side kicking in. "Come on, Cosmo, I'm not really-" he began.

Cosmo put her hands on either side of his head and turned it to face her, cutting him off mid-sentence. "Let's get something straight," she said with a new authority in her voice. He had heard the tone once before, when he'd tried to renounce captainship of the _Blue Typhoon_. "You're smart, you're amazing with machines, and you need to stop telling yourself otherwise. Got it?" She shook his head once for emphasis.

Tails got it, but it took him longer than usual to reply; something about meeting her eyes had slowed his thought process for a second or two. He made up for the delay with wit. "Aye, aye," he replied, and did his best to salute with his head in its unusual position. Cosmo nodded as if satisfied, and released him.

Almost as if on cue, the intercom buzzed to life. "Rise and shine, kiddies," Nestor's disembodied voice ordered. "Nap time's over. Get your tails down to the hangar; I've got jobs for you." A pause. "Whether you literally have a tail or not, and how many, is irrelevant. I repeat, all hands report to the hangar bay. Move it, people!" A second buzz, a click, and silence.

Tails got to his feet with a sigh of mock exasperation. "Duty calls." He tapped the open button and left his quarters, Cosmo following behind. Helios, who had observed their entire conversation in silence, was left to ponder the peculiarities of how living beings interacted.

* * *

**Yes, half a chapter of dialogue in a sci-fi action story. It happens. Don't let the talk obscure what else has occured, however; there is more yet to be overcome before reaching journey's end.**


	22. Chapter 21: The Prick of a Feather

**I apologize for my longest update to date; school has been pressing on both my mind and my time, and to add to that, I'm now the administrator of a forum. I don't honestly know whether my updates will speed up anytime soon, as this story is only planned out in a very general way, and I'm to invent a lot of it as I write. Regardless, I hope you all enjoy this installment.**

* * *

Chapter 21 – The Prick of a Feather

_Module 3 elevator shaft, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_8:35, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

A trigger clicked into the "on" position, sending a minute electrical signal up the wire attached to it. The fuel line jumped and stiffened, and a blue-white flame leaped into existence at the nozzle's tip, illuminating the surrounding pitch-darkness. Tails brought the torch into contact with a rod of filler metal and a crack in the same object that supported his weight: the punctured roof of an elevator car. Specifically, punctured by Amy's hammer.

"I don't know how you put up with the heat," Sonic commented through his comm-piece. He was down below; Tails could see the shower of sparks falling from the ceiling in the background.

"Carefully, and never for too long," he replied, shutting off the torch. The fresh weld line glowed orange in the darkness. Tails lifted his tinted mask and wiped sweat from his forehead, fanning with his tails to clear the fumes. In such a small space with so little airflow, you could never be too careful. Once the first bit of filler had cooled to a dark red, he lowered his mask again and started on the next line.

"You know," Sonic said, starting on a different thread, "I don't think this was in the briefing. Weren't we supposed to be _passengers_, not a repair crew?"

"A hostile Metarex AI wasn't exactly in the briefing, either," Tails pointed out as he finished the second weld. "The original plan was to have me repairing his gunship count as payment for our mission at the Fall – for which I owe full price, since it was a complete success." He ignited the torch again. "The damage caused by our fight with Nightshade was never part of the arrangement; we're paying for _that_ by helping with the repairs."

"Oh, come on, how were we supposed to know that would happen?"

"We could have planned for it, in theory, and now we're paying the price for not doing so," Tails explained. Sonic frowned on the tiny screen, apparently puzzled by the unusual logic.

"Why are you helping us, though?" he asked. "Didn't Nestor say you were off the hook for fixing _Dione_?"

Tails laughed. "I'd rather put in a little extra work than wait another two months to get back home."

Sonic's reply was so predictable that Tails could have said it with him: "Whatever you say, bro." The fox shook his head and continued his work.

"That should do it," he announced a few minutes later, slapping the repaired metal both for emphasis and to test the strength of the welds. The lines of cooled filler held firm. Tails lifted off and flew to the top of the elevator shaft, where the upper door – already repaired – stood open. The kitsune alighted in the corridor, picked up the tank that supplied his welding torch, and started toward the doorway that led to the ring hallway. Behind him, the door slid shut, then reopened as the elevator car arrived with Sonic inside.

Most of the crew was on this level: Amy, Cream, and Cheese were repairing the door to Knuckles' room under the direction of Helios, while the echidna himself stood in the exit doorway, looking rather bored. He was holding up the blast door that Amy had knocked out of its frame – a task only he could do alone – so that Shadow, who had crawled up inside the maintenance tunnels, could repair the machinery. The bulkhead itself was still badly mangled and would have to be pounded flat again. Cosmo was fitting a pre-made replacement into a hole where a destroyed AI terminal had been removed; she met Tails' eyes and smiled briefly before returned her attention to her work.

As Tails was about to ask if he could help in some way, his comm-piece chimed once. He glanced at the screen and was unsurprised to see Nestor on the other end. The captain was in some dimly lit room that Tails didn't recognize; something behind him glowed blue and occasionally emitted bright flashes of white. "Hey, kid, you busy with anything?" he asked.

"Well, I was about to-"

"Good," Nestor cut him off. "Come on down to research, I need you to take a look at something." Something metallic tapped him on the shoulder; he looked around, and Helios said something in his ear. Tails couldn't hear what was said. After a moment, Nestor nodded and returned his attention to their conversation. "Bring Cosmo, too, if you want. She might be interested." He glanced to both sides, then added in a conspiratorial whisper: "If you know what I mean." He grinned slyly.

"What-?" Tails started to ask, but Nestor had already ended the call. The fox switched off the small computer and looked up to check on Cosmo's progress. To his surprise, she had just finished turning the final bolt into place. Could Nestor have somehow seen that she was about to finish, or perhaps even timed his call? Bemused, he watched as Helios tested the newly installed camera, flexing and stretching like a cat, to Cosmo's amusement.

After a moment, the AI said something Tails couldn't hear, and Cosmo looked around at him. Realizing that he had been letting his mind drift, the fox snapped back into focus and made for her. "Hi, Tails," Cosmo greeted him as he stopped to stand before them. "What was Nestor calling about?"

"How did you-?" Tails started to ask, before remembering what Helios had told him on the day he first arrived on _Hephaestus_. "Never mind," he amended himself. "Nestor wants to show me something, and he asked me to bring you, too. He thinks you'd be interested."

"Well, if it's something _he's_ come up with, it _must_ be interesting," Cosmo replied. She gestured to the outside corridor with one hand. "Lead the way." Tails chuckled without really knowing why. Something about what Cosmo had said, perhaps some nuance of her tone, seemed vaguely out of place.

Then again, very few things seemed to be in place on Nestor's ship – which, Tails mused, was exactly the point, and why both he and Cosmo were here right now. He pushed the thought away and fell into step beside her.

"So... how've you been?" he asked after a minute or so. He was making small talk, it was true, but any conversation would be better than silence all the way to the other side of the ring. Cosmo arched an eyebrow in amusement.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, just..." Tails floundered for an instant before regaining his train of thought. "I mean about Nestor, Helios, the ship... whatever you want, really."

Cosmo turned back to the direction they were walking, her brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Everything's find, I guess; there's not really all that much going on, now that Nightshade's out of the picture." She paused for a moment. "What about you?" she inquired in return, passing the thread of what was becoming a rather awkward conversation to Tails.

"Same as you, I suppose," he replied with a shrug.

"That's not really what I meant." Cosmo tone hadn't changed, but the words still seemed to carry more weight than before. He turned and saw that she was looking at him seriously.

"Then what did you mean?" Tails voiced the obvious question. He had a hunch as to what the answer might be, but he didn't want to assume yet in case he had guessed wrong.

"I'm talking about before, Tails. After the Fall," Cosmo replied, her voice still remarkably level despite the subject she had just broached.

Tails was forced to revise his earlier reasoning: he would rather have sat through an hour of silence in her company than discuss what that fateful day – it felt like years ago now – had done to him. Every answer seemed like the wrong one. Telling her the truth, that he had been tormented for months by grief and regret, would cause Cosmo to blame herself for his suffering; saying that he had moved on, not merely endured, would be both untrue and an affront to her memory. The second part had long since managed to wedge itself quite effectively into his mind and had so far refused to leave, despite the success of their recent mission.

Cosmo seemed to sense that she had trespassed on forbidden ground. "I'm- I'm sorry if-," she mumbled, unconsciously moving a little farther from him. Tails suppressed a sigh of relief.

"It doesn't matter, anyway," the kitsune reassured her. "It's in the past now." Predictably, a pause followed – not an uncomfortable one, but one of mutual understanding. For the time being, they silently agreed to let the subject rest.

* * *

"So, what do _you_ think of Nestor?" Cosmo inquired on a lighter note, assuming that the eccentric captain would serve as a decent change of subject. "I wouldn't even know where to start with him."

Tails chuckled. "I'll admit, he is a bit weird sometimes, but I really don't mind. I'd rather deal with him than some traditional, by-the-book military captain who only knows how to talk to his crew by giving orders. Besides, I owe him a lot."

Cosmo nodded, understanding. "Still, doesn't he seem..." she hesitated, searching for the right word, "...a little arch to you, sometimes?"

"What do you mean by that?"

Cosmo frowned thoughtfully, trying to find a way to describe what she meant. "I mean, does it ever seem like he's... well, not really talking _down_ to you, but... like he's not quite taking you seriously? Earlier, I went to ask him about Nightshade still being in here, and he sort of... looked at me strangely and said 'I don't know where you got that idea.' He hasn't ever done that to you?"

Tails frowned as well. "Are you sure you weren't just...?" he began, both eyebrows raised in a startlingly familiar expression.

"Like that!" Cosmo cut him off, pointing at his face. "Exactly like you just looked at me, surprised and..." Again she groped for a term. Though she knew it very well, Universal was not her first language. "Condescending, that's it, surprised and condescending at the same time." **[A/N: It's a tricky expression to describe; you have to get someone to show you.]**

"I didn't mean to be that way, Cosmo!" Tails insisted, raising both hands in a gesture of apology. "I'm not looking down on you, honest!"

"Don't worry, I know," Cosmo reassured him just as quickly, though she could barely keep from laughing at the fox's distress. What she saw as a minor and accidental slip, he seemed to regard as a gross insult. Tails gave a sigh of relief as she said it; his ears, which had previously lowered to the sides of his head, stood back up. "Do your ears always do that?" Cosmo asked, never having noticed the movement before.

"You mean this?" he replied, flicking them down and back up a couple of times. The Seedrian laughed, struck by a mental image of a butterfly testing its wings. "What?" Tails asked, his confusion adding to the humor of the situation; he obviously had no idea how ridiculous he looked. When Cosmo's fit didn't stop, he started laughing as well, with the result that neither of them was able to do any actual talking until Helios interrupted them.

"If you two are quite finished," the AI's voice called to them with a slight note of impatience, "I would like to inform you that the main entrance to Module 1 is eleven meters behind to your right. Unless you intend to enter via the maintenance tunnels, I suggest you turn around."

Cosmo and Tails turned toward the voice, perplexed, and saw that they had indeed walked straight past the sliding double doors that led to their destination. Embarrassed by the mistake, they retraced their steps and entered the module, Helios's eye following their movement until they passed through the doorway.

The entrance hallway here was much like the one on the opposite side of the starship's ring, except that it was shorter and had a greater variety of door sizes and styles lining the walls. One bore the biohazard sign; another had been painted with black and yellow stripes and reinforced with thick metal bands; a third was three times the normal width and appeared to open upward rather than sideways. All were labeled, but none were in Universal.

"Which one do you think-?" Cosmo started to ask, but fell silent when she heard a tap from a door directly to their left. The two turned in unison to see Nestor gesturing at them through a small glass porthole set into the metal. A second or two later, some mechanism clicked, and the door slid open to reveal the slate-gray hedgehog in his entirety.

"All business now? No more jokes? Good," Nestor greeted them, clapping his hands together. At another time and place, Cosmo might have wondered how he knew of their previous conversation, but the captain's apparent omniscience of goings-on aboard _Hephaestus_ had ceased to impress her.

The room that she and Tails had arrived in was mostly dark, lit only by the faint radiance of a large piece of machinery suspended from the ceiling. At the lowest tip of the structure was Helios's now-familiar glowing lens, mounted in a turret-like hardpoint that gave it a half-spherical field of view. This was surrounded by a formidable array of silver, multi-jointed limbs, all of which seemed to be in constant motion. The flurry of activity stopped at a sign from Nestor, and the great machine rose up and out of the way. The hedgehog then stepped aside to reveal the metal surface underneath it.

"Does this look familiar?" he asked, pointing at the object of Helios's attention. Cosmo didn't recognize it; judging by his silence, neither did Tails. "This is the probe that hacked into our system and became Nightshade," Nestor explained. "Marauder technology, once it's been taken apart."

It had certainly had _that_ done to it; there were easily over two dozen components arranged neatly under the AI's azure gaze. Now that she looked again, however, Cosmo was able to discern familiar shapes: the spiky, diamond-shaped head of a Metarex soldier in miniature, and a pair of thick lenses crafted from violet glass.

"What were you looking for?" Tails asked, leaning forward to examine the dissected robot. "You must have something in mind to have taken this much trouble."

"I was hoping to have a look at the computing hardware," Nestor replied, tapping the side of the empty skull casing. "If Helios's reports on Nightshade are correct, these things must use a unique form of programming. But that's not why I called you two down here." He pointed to a tiny black ball on the table behind him, no bigger than a marble.

As if on cue, the machine resting against the ceiling dropped back down to its former position, startling those standing near it, and unfolded a few of its arms as it came. One swung downward and picked up the ball in a three-fingered claw, while a second brought a minute circular saw to bear, cutting through the black shell with a noise like a buzzing insect. Two precise incisions, and the carapace fell neatly into four pieces. Helios removed the object inside and swapped the blade for a laser. Four controlled bursts melted the transparent coating on the object, leaving it bare. The AI then stowed the cutting tools and held a lens in front of the tiny component, allowing those present to see what it was.

* * *

Tails saw immediately that the part was a minute piece of circuitry. He couldn't imagine what its purpose might be; the most it could have held was perhaps a few hundred bytes of data. From the look of its removed casing, though, the machine's designer had gone to great lengths to protect its contents.

"The outer shell was composed of a tight mesh of superconductive carbon fiber," Helios was saying. "It would likely have functioned as a Faraday cage of sorts – though obviously much smaller – protecting the hardware within from electrical discharges and light-based interference. The undercoating was composed of shock-absorbing gelatin to resist physical trauma."

"That thing's got more armor than the machine," Nestor commented. "What's in there that they thought was so worth protecting?"

"A moment more, and I shall know," Helios replied. "I've already discovered a translation program in the primary matrix, so language should be no barrier." A tool bearing a pair of thin copper prongs dropped down from the mass of arms above and touched its two electrodes to spots on the green circuit board. Almost instantly, a screen on the wall lit up, and one by one, four lines of green text shimmered into view:

--Universal Directive.

--Carry out PROJECT: "Forestation."

--Create and safeguard order.

--_For the great and noble mission, all may be sacrificed._

**[A/N: I went back to check the episode from which the last part originates; apparently I've had the quote slightly off.]**

Tails heard Cosmo utter a quiet gasp when the final line appeared. "What wrong?" he asked curiously, turning to face her. She blinked, then tore her eyes away from the screen to meet his.

"I heard a Metarex say that last part once," she replied. "It was when we were inside the Metarex battle station; you weren't there." She paused for a moment. "I... I think they may all have one of those," she added uncertainly, pointing to the component still being held in the AI's claw.

"Intriguing," Helios commented thoughtfully. "If you are correct, and the first line of the message is accurate, we may have discovered the Marauders' core directive."

"Strange, isn't it?" Nestor added. "They supposedly want order, yet they still insist on messing with the border patrols and hunting guys like me for parts."

Tails had been thinking over the third line of the Directive and wondering how waging galactic war fell into the category of "safeguarding order," but was broken out of his reverie by the Nestor's comment. "What?" he asked suddenly, cutting short the rest of the captain's intended speech. "The Metarex are still at war with you?"

"Well, not _war_ as such," Nestor replied. "They just like to peck at the edges, really. Every now and then they make it inside and cause some trouble, but we never really-"

Tails didn't wait for the end of his sentence, but immediately turned to face the engineering apparatus at the room's center. Cosmo, however, had guessed his thought process and spoke before the kitsune's mouth opened. "Helios, did Nightshade send any signals before you defeated him?"

"Yes, it did," the AI replied. "I was able to intercept one before it was broadcast, but the others were too far ahead of me."

"What!?" Nestor exclaimed, staring at the great machine. "Why the hell didn't you tell us?"

"It was encrypted!" Helios answered, temporarily letting some of its dignity slip. "I have so far been unable to reach the file's contents, and therefore had no reason to assume it would threaten this vessel's security in any way."

Nestor gritted his teeth, then shut his eyes and exhaled slowly. "Helios," he began in a tone of forced calm, "I want you to scan our entire perimeter in every direction, as far as our range reaches. If you find _anything_ – I don't care if it's smaller than my fist – you get your cameras on it and figure out what it is. Am I understood?" He glared at the AI's glowing lens as if daring it to answer incorrectly.

"Aye, aye, captain," Helios replied after an uncharacteristically long pause. The many-armed machine rose back up to its place on the ceiling, and the blue light behind its eye winked off. The three of them waited in silence for several seconds before the AI spoke again: "Object on radar." The announcement was accompanied by the familiar series of Terroran symbols in the bottom corner of the large screen. The green text vanished, to be replaced by an image of the space outside. Dead center in the camera was a small, indistinct, yellow-green shape. "Enlarging," Helios said, and the object swelled to fill the view. The picture was grainy due to extreme range, but Tails would have recognized the silhouette anywhere: a golden Metarex cruiser.

"Distance estimated at three hundred sixty kilometers," Helios reported. "Line-of-sight edgeward approximate, twenty-seven degrees alongspin and two degrees north."

"Vector?" Nestor asked, his gaze fixed intently on the image.

The AI hesitated, probably calculating the answer. "Direct intercept course," it replied.

Nestor made a guttural noise somewhere between "_katatr_" and a growl of frustration. "Go to Class-B alert," he ordered, swiftly taking on the military precision that Tails had glimpsed on his first day aboard _Hephaestus_. "All weapons armed, CIPS up at thirty percent. Heat up the engines and get us turned around to face that thing."

"Sir, the hostile vessel is likely to have a considerable firepower advantage."

"You got a better plan?" There was a pause.

"Moving, captain," Helios replied. Instantly, a single crimson strip lit up the darkened room, and four red symbols began flashing on the large screen, underlined by the words "Class-B Alert." The door snapped open at Nestor's command, revealing that the corridor's lighting had also changed to red. "Class-B alert status initiated," Helios's voice announced, echoing through the metal hallways. "All personnel report to designated ship-to-ship combat stations. This is not a drill. Repeat, all personnel to combat stations."

Nestor took a few steps through the door, then stopped and beckoned to Tails and Cosmo urgently. "Come on, let's get down to the hangar!"

Tails, never one to make a decision too quickly, immediately spotted the captain's error. The crew had yet to run a full systems check since the skirmish with Nightshade; for all they knew, some important component could be critically damaged. "Wait a minute, shouldn't we-?" he started to ask.

"No time," Nestor cut him off without so much as waiting for the rest of his question. Without another word to the fox, he dashed toward the ring hallway, shouting into his comm-piece as he went: "All crew, report to hangar, double-time!" Tails hesitated briefly, then decided there was nothing for it; he sprinted after the captain with Cosmo at his heels.

* * *

**It seems Nightshade was neither the last nor the worst of the crew's worries; a fully armed warship now menaces them, its combat capabilities far greater than they can hope to achieve. Is there another way to defeat this armored hunter, or is _Hephaestus_ destined to fight its last?**


	23. Chapter 22: Code Harpoon

Chapter 22 – Code Harpoon

_Module 3 entrance, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion star cluster_

_8:55, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

As Cosmo emerged into the hallway, her eyes were briefly dazzled after the darkness of the dissection room. All around her, _Hephaestus_ was coming alive with sound and movement. Spinning lights appeared from within the ceiling, bathing the walls and floor in a display of flashing crimson. Text in two languages scrolled by on every screen. Above it all, a long, low klaxon sounded, calling out a one-syllable message for the entire crew to hear.

Nestor reached the module's nearby exit in under two seconds and, after a pause in which he barely had time to slide to a stop, took off alongspin around the ring. Tails and Cosmo sprinted after the captain, barely keeping pace. As they ran, the siren died away, only to repeat its sonorous cry a second later. Though this particular starship lacked any large crew to speak of, it took little effort to imagine what this same situation would have looked like on a fully-staffed vessel.

After about twenty seconds, an elevator opening swung past on their right; Nestor made a hairpin turn to catch it, as did the two following him. Almost before Cosmo had made it into the cramped car, the door snapped shut, and a combination of cables and air pressure sent the metal box hurtling toward _Hephaestus_'s center region.

"Alright, listen up," Nestor began, addressing his crewmates over the intercom. "Time is of the essence, and we need to get to the bridge as quickly as possible. Follow me closely, do exactly as I do, and don't let the funny gravity get to you. Be ready to move as soon as you reach the hangar."

They waited. Within the compartment, silence reigned, broken only by a soft whir of machinery and the breathing of its occupants; few could have discerned that it was moving at all. Cosmo's gaze wandered nervously, first to Tails, then to Nestor, then to some indeterminate point on the featureless walls or ceiling. If either of her crewmates shared her anxiety, however, they hid it well.

Then, simultaneously, all three of them felt it: a familiar sensation that one's internal organs were rising. The quiet, mechanical background noise responded with a slow decrease in pitch as it gradually brought down the elevator's speed. The tension in the riders' minds, having been high before, now became almost oppressive. With agonizing slowness, the machinery wound itself down and the feeling of deceleration faded to nothing. With a soft _clunk_ that somehow seemed deafeningly loud, the elevator car came to a stop. Somewhere, a vacuum seal released with a short hiss, and the door slid open.

"Time's up, go, go, go!" the captain called before bolting out of the compartment. Tails and Cosmo immediately followed suit, as did the rest of the crew, all of whom had arrived at exactly the same time. Nestor's course took them through the cavernous hangar and into the series of halls and bays beyond, a labyrinth that only he could navigate with the necessary speed.

"Engines at full operational capacity," Helios announced. "Beginning instructed maneuvers." A deep hum and an even lower grinding joined the still-screaming siren, and with no further warning, the vessel's gravity faded to nothing. Only the tight confines of the corridors and the steel handholds along both walls saved Cosmo and the rest from drifting.

"Watch your momentum," Nestor called over his shoulder, and began to pull himself hand-over-hand along one of the rails. Cosmo did the same, fighting off a sudden dizziness at the loss of her sense of balance. Only by forcing herself to remember that the lights were on the ceiling could she maintain any kind of stability. Glancing back, she saw that Sonic was apparently taking the simpler route: feeling his way along the bar with his eyes shut against the disorienting view.

After another half-minute of hallways, Nestor led them into a rectangular opening that would have pointed straight up had gravity still been in effect. The shaft veered left two stories up – turned to fore after twenty feet, Cosmo corrected herself – becoming a rounded tunnel that ran straight along the corvette's axis of rotation. This in turn opened out into a cone-shaped room with a wraparound view of deep space – _Hephaestus_'s bridge.

"Grab a seat," Nestor instructed, letting himself drift for a few feet before pushing off of the fore wall. The crew – rather clumsily, for none of them had much experience in zero gravity – took their places at the consoles that were mounted, facing the bow, to the curved inside wall. Those with no technical skill simply gripped handholds as tightly as possible.

As soon as Cosmo sat down, metal limbs unfolded from the seat to hold her lower body securely in place. The console adjusted itself to her body size, placing all of the controls within easy reach. At the center of the bridge, in the direction that had now become "up," a holographic image of the corvette flickered into view.

"Helios?" Nestor asked simply; apparently, crisis situations could counteract his usually roundabout manner of speaking.

"All present and calibrated," the AI replied, equally concise. "We are as combat-ready as can be reasonably expected."

"_Kora_. Crew, make ready for battle." As he said this, _Hephaestus_ completed its slow change of direction; the Metarex cruiser became visible through the front window, now close enough to be seen without the aid of a camera. A spotlight focused onto the enemy vessel, keeping it brightly visible against the interstellar dark.

Almost instantly, Cosmo's console alerted her to an incoming signal. "They're... hailing us?" she spoke up, rather surprised herself by this fact. In her experience, the Metarex usually fired as soon as they could count on hitting their target.

"What do they want?" Nestor asked, sounding equally taken aback. "Marauders _never_ try to negotiate; they just take what they want and leave."

Rather than replying, the Seedrian relayed the message through the bridge speakers. "This is assault cruiser _Bladewing_ of the Metarex Navy, on course to intercept," the vessel intoned. Its voice was low, monotonous, and metallic, and seemed to buzz with static on certain sounds. Nightshade had sounded similar, but with a somewhat higher pitch. "Power down all movement and combat systems and prepare for network intrusion, followed by boarding," the transmission continued. "Failure to comply will result in forcible deactivation of said systems, with possible danger to other equipment and crewmembers."

"'Forcible deactivation,' eh?" Nestor commented, sounding amused. He picked up a microphone from his console. "This is privater vessel _Hephaestus_, acknowledging request. Anyone who thinks we're going to surrender can regroup in sector hotel-echo-two lima."**  
**

There was a long, slightly ominous pause before Bladewing spoke again: "Acknowledged." At once, Cosmo saw the thermal readings spike, and the golden ship's incoming speed increased by half. Two yellow flashes erupted from either side of the bow.

"Adaptive CIPS," Nestor ordered. Judging by his calm tone, he had expected a fight to begin either way.

"Aye," was Helios's only response. Two gaseous blobs of incandescent violet congealed in front of the bridge; a split second later, a fast-moving projectile collided with each. The ion shielding vaporized the cannon slugs instantly, turning them into nothing more than a harmless spray of atoms. Their purpose fulfilled, the twin clouds likewise dissipated.

"Returning fire," Nestor announced. Three white vapor trails streaked past the bridge windows, weaving from side to side on erratic flight paths toward their target. The missiles impacted squarely on the Metarex ship's hull and briefly illuminated the surrounding emptiness with orange. However, _Bladewing_ continued forward, unfazed, its thick armor barely dented. "Evasive maneuvers!" Nestor ordered as the cruiser came far too close for comfort, clearly intending to engage at close range.

"Moving," Tails replied calmly. The hull shook with the roar of unfamiliar engines; clearly, _Hephaestus_ relied on combustion rather than ionic thrust for high-speed maneuvers. The corvette swung to one side as the attacking ship hurtled past, keeping her bow pointed at the enemy. Nestor fired again, but the golden Metarex vessel simply took the hits as it turned hard to starboard, fighting its momentum. Its laser battery glowed, preparing for an attack that the ion shields would be unable to block; only a last-second course correction by Tails saved them.

So it continued. The two starships traded seemingly inexhaustible streams of weapons fire, dodging or incinerating the incoming projectiles when possible and taking the hits when not. _Bladewing_'s armor was blackened by soot from almost constant missile impacts; _Hephaestus_ looked nearly pristine, but the few hits she had taken had left great scars in her hull. At first glance, and to an outside observer, the battle would have looked like an even match, but in a contest between a research vessel and a heavily armored warship, there was no question of who had the advantage. Cosmo had long ago given up her attempts to keep track of the fight through the bridge windows; the lack of gravity and the constant turns and rotation made it impossible to keep their own direction straight, much less the enemy's. Instead, she watched the movements of both ships on her console's holographic display.

Suddenly, _Bladewing_ made a hard left in the corvette's direction and let loose with both cannons, sending a pair of shells their way. The ion shielding absorbed both; rather than veering off, however, the cruiser held its course at full speed, aiming for a direct head-on collision. Tails quickly forced _Hephaestus_ to one side, causing the Metarex vessel to hurtle past and nearly collide with Module 4 in the process. Both combatants came about sharply in order to take advantage of the short distance between them; they ended up flying in tight circles around each other, each attempting to out-turn the other and gain a better position. Nestor fired yet again, but the missiles were too fast to match the turning radius of the slow-moving starships, and they streaked off uselessly into the void.

"For the love of Chaos, would you _please_ find something else to shoot at it!?" Knuckles shouted, speaking for the first time since the start of the battle.

"I can't, these are all I've got," Nestor replied, his voice starting to show stress as well. Tails started to say something, but the echidna interrupted him.

"Then what are we going to do!?" he demanded. Again, Tails attempted to make himself heard, but was cut off once more.

"Lord of stars, stop yelling!" Nestor shouted back. "I need to concentrate here. I figure if I can find a soft spot in the armor..."

"_There aren't any soft spots!_"

"Stop it, both of you!" Cosmo exclaimed, cutting across the captain's irate reply. "Can't you see Tails has something to say?" she continued, looking reproachfully at both of the contenders in turn. Knuckles folding his arms, fuming silently in his seat; Nestor looked as if he was about to argue, but apparently thought better of it. "Tails?" Cosmo said, indirectly inviting him to speak.

Without looking away from his console's display – he was still fighting to keep _Hephaestus_ on the same path as the enemy cruiser – Tails explained what he had been trying to say before. "We'll never beat this thing if we pick targets at random. Knuckles is right: that armor can take a massive amount of damage, probably more than all the missiles we have could deliver. But it can't protect everything; certain parts have to be left uncovered."

"And how do you know that?" Nestor asked, skepticism heavy in his tone.

"Well..." Tails seemed to falter for a moment. "I've never encountered this exact design before, but if other Metarex ships are anything to judge by, it'll be weak at the weapon outputs and around the engines."

Now it was Nestor's turn to hesitate; he seemed to have forgotten that Tails and the others had experience fighting Metarex forces. He recovered himself after a few seconds. "Alright, what do you suggest?" he asked.

"I'm going to put us bow-to-bow with that cruiser," Tails replied. "I'll need you to take out its main weapon battery before it has a chance to shoot us down."

"Understood," Nestor said. "I'm ready when you are, Helm Vice."

Tails decided that asking what he had just been called could wait. "Hang on, everyone; this could get rough," he called, then threw _Hephaestus_ into a sharp turn opposite her previous direction. The corvette's steel frame groaned audibly from the stress. _Bladewing_, although smaller, had more weight in its armor and was unable to match the maneuver. The golden ship soared past on a wide arc, struggling to correct course.

"Get ready," Tails told Nestor as he continued the corvette's rotation. His intention was to swing the prow past _Bladewing_'s position, giving the captain an opportunity to fire. Of course, this plan depended on the Metarex ship having poorer maneuverability than their own; while its design suggested such a weakness, there was no way to be sure.

"Roger," Nestor replied. "I'll have a lock in just a few..."

As he said this, Cosmo glanced at her console and saw that _Bladewing_ had continued on its curving flight path and nearly had _Hephaestus_ in its gunsights. From the looks of it, the two vessels would face each other at the same time, just seconds away. "Fire, now!" she ordered Nestor. The captain hesitated only for an instant before punching the trigger, just as the enemy ship came into view.

Half a dozen missiles dropped out of their slots and ignited, propelling themselves on an intercept course with the cruiser. A mere two hundred yards away, the protective shutters on _Bladewing_'s weapon battery slid open, revealing the lenses beneath. As Nestor's salvo crossed the halfway point, each of the twenty-odd laser cannons heated to a dark red, followed by a bright yellow, in preparation to return fire. Too late, the armored warship saw its downfall coming; it was unable to alter course as momentum carried it directly into the path of six high-yield fragmentation warheads flying at over two hundred feet per second. The missiles detonated in a blaze of orange, followed by a blinding flash of golden light as the lasers discharged through shattered lenses, adding to the already considerable damage. A roar of incoherent noise, almost like a cry of rage, blasted across the ship-to-ship comm link.

"Bull's eye!" Nestor exclaimed jubilantly, punching the air. "That's how it's done: _herakna umr kon menuko!_"

Rather than joining in as the rest of the crew erupted into cheers, Cosmo remained silent, watching _Bladewing_ drift along its flight path with a mixture of anxiety and suspicion. Something was off; for one thing, Metarex vessels of that size _never_ went down so easily. There was another problem as well, but Cosmo couldn't quite place it.

Then she saw the cruiser's flight path on the holographic display, and it clicked. It was still following its previous course – an _arc_. Turning in space could only be accomplished by continuously applying force, usually by firing a thruster. A look at the thermal readings on the console confirmed what Cosmo already suspected: though its lasers were out of commission, _Bladewing_ remained operational. Worse, it was quickly moving into position to blindside them. She had to let the crew know, now.

"Everyone, we haven't won yet!" she called, but failed to make herself heard over the noise. Helios, however, distinguished her voice from the background; always helpful, the AI immediately played back her warning at ten times the original volume, startling the bridge into silence.

"What do you-?" Nestor started to ask; Tails, however, had the presence of mind to check the display and soon saw what Cosmo had noticed. He immediately began turning the corvette to keep the Metarex vessel in view; Helios aimed the spotlight out into space, searching for their lost target.

But the AI needn't have bothered; an instant later, _Bladewing_'s gunports flashed, lighting it up like a flare. Cosmo's thermal reading jumped as the cruiser accelerated toward the larger vessel. This time, either the ion shielding must have been unprepared for the projectiles, or it was unable to stop them; powerful shock waves from two direct hits shuddered through the hull. Immediately, the ship's rotation ground to a halt; the roar of the engines ceased abruptly as their power was cut. _Hephaestus_ was now virtually dead in the water.

Of course, water was rarely as deadly as the hard vacuum that surrounded them.

"Critical damage to number-two elevator shaft," Helios reported. "All local circuits are unresponsive; a hull breach is likely. Thruster-control buffers have activated."

"Now what?" Nestor demanded as if he expected someone else to have the answer. "We can't get off a shot at this angle, and we're a sitting target anyway with-"

"Pardon my interruption, but the cruiser's heading suggests further danger!" the AI announced, putting as much urgency into its synthesized voice as possible. As one, the entire crew turned to their displays and saw at once what Helios meant. _Bladewing_ was still accelerating at full capacity, and it didn't take a doctorate in physics to work out where it was headed.

"Brace for impact!" Nestor ordered, gripping his console tightly.

Tungsten metal, sometimes known as wolfram, is noted for being incredibly resilient. It has the highest melting point of any known metallic element, and a single cubic centimeter weighs over nineteen grams. Even mixed with a lighter metal such as cobalt, tungsten is a force to be reckoned with – especially when that alloy is forged into a round of artillery-grade ammunition, loaded into a Metarex naval gun, and fired at well over twice the speed of sound. Even so, such rounds rarely accomplish anything far from where they strike, certainly not at the opposite end of a starship.

The vessel that fires them, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter.

Nestor's order was followed by brief moment of complete, almost expectant silence. Then armor met armor with horrendous crash, followed by a gunshot-like bang as air exploded through the punctured hull. _Hephaestus_ lurched forward, causing Cosmo's head to slam against the back of her seat. The corvette's frame protested loudly, joined by a chorus of ominous snaps and deafening screeches. Rending, cracking, groaning – every conceivable noise that two colliding machines could make resounded up through the ship's structure. Then it stopped, punctuated by a low _boom_, leaving only the continuous, grinding hum of unfamiliar engines.

"Major hull breach," Helios reported as the crew recovered from the crash. "External airlock doors are compromised; the aft section of the landing bay has been sealed off."

"What happened to the ship?" Knuckles asked.

"I just gave a full damage repo-"

"The _other_ ship, Engel," the echidna interrupted impatiently. **[A/N: Read as "Einstein."]**

"Ah, of course," the AI replied, unembarrassed. "Sensory data is inconclusive; however, the vessel's trajectory and recent seismic readings suggest that it has lodged itself inside the landing bay." A holographic image appeared in the center of the bridge, showing the two interlocked starships. "A viable strategy to enact a boarding, I suppose, considering the strength of Marauder armor plating," Helios continued.

"Then let's get down there," Nestor concluded, flipping a switch on his console. The harness holding him in place retracted. "Activate the backup gravity generators; I don't fancy fighting off a boarding party without a floor."

Cosmo felt her normal sense of balance return; she released her own harness and stood up, along with the rest of the crew. Being able to stand normally again was a relief, but seeing the others apparently hanging from the walls was, if anything, even more disorienting. "Are you sure that a direct confrontation is the best option, captain?" Helios inquired as Nestor made for the exit from the bridge.

Nestor stopped and looked back toward them, grinning with what looked like anticipation. "That's exactly the kind of confrontation that gunships are built for," he replied. "If they thought _Hephaestus_ was all they had to beat, they're in for a rude awakening. Let's move out!"


	24. Chapter 23: Chains of Command

**It's been a loooong time. How have you been?**

**Specifically, my last update was on October twelfth of _last_ year - not that any returning readers will need that date to recognize an absurdly large time gap. I don't blame anyone who mistook this story for yet another perpetual non-ender, and I respect the patience of those who didn't. Unfortunately, the chapter still ends one event earlier than I originally planned, but I don't regret the change; I think it works better this way. To the reviewers: know that what you're about to read was written, on and off and with a roughly even spread, over slightly more than a year. Don't be surprised if you notice the effects. As always, though, never blunt your criticism.**

**This installment went through several name changes (sitting for a while at "A Thousand Lies and a Good Disguise" and more briefly at "Grindstone," among others) before settling on the current title. In retrospect, I think the chapter itself followed a similar pattern. Any and all thoughts on the subject are welcome.  
**

* * *

Chapter 23 – Chains of Command

_Bridge, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association _

_9:20, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

The crew moved at top speed to follow Nestor's order; in seconds, the bridge had become as quiet as a tomb. One person remained behind, his absence either unnoticed or ignored by his companions. Tails, still seated at the controls, listened as the sounds of their departure faded away. After a few seconds of absolute silence, the fox exhaled loudly and dropped his forehead onto the console.

_What was I thinking? _he berated himself. _Only six missiles, after all the hits it took before? And with the engines completely unscathed, no less… Stupid._ He sat back up and leaned against the headrest. This entire situation was his fault, there was no getting around that. His knowledge and piloting skills had made no difference, because he had forgotten the one lesson that past battles had taught him above all others: _never_ take your eyes off a damaged enemy. It was lucky that Cosmo had spotted _Bladewing_'s movement when she had; another four seconds of rotation and the bridge would have been an easy target. One shot, and all eight of them would be dead – but not before experiencing thirty of the most agonizing seconds the universe could deliver. Not before being engulfed by cold, silent emptiness, their last breaths torn from their lungs, hurtling endlessly through space with absolutely no hope of escape… Tails gave an involuntary shudder. Just the thought of such a vast, complete _nothing_ could make his blood run cold.

At that moment, the terminal beside the entrance spoke suddenly, breaking through the ambiance produced by the ship. "Acknowledged, initiating Class-A secu-" Helios paused mid-sentence. Its camera extended and made a brief survey of the bridge. "There seems to have been an error. My apologies, Lieutenant," the steward amended, starting to withdraw from the room.

"Wait!" Tails called, catching the lens halfway into the wall. "What was that you said?"

"A small equipment malfunction, nothing more," Helios replied, positioning the camera to face him. "My own mistake, actually; a computer with zero percent uncertainty has yet to be designed."

"No, what did you call me?"

"The title is incorrect?"

"_What_ title?" Tails pressed, starting to lose his patience. For all its knowledge, speed, and meticulous accuracy, the AI could be very dense at times.

"The captain previously addressed you as 'Helm Vice'," Helios elaborated. "He was probably referring to the rank of _Sigragibadnak Inur_, usually translated as 'Vice Shipmaster' – in effect, he identified you as his direct subordinate. Is 'Lieutenant' an appropriate translation?"

Tails offered no reply, contemplating the steward's explanation. He vaguely – no, _distinctly_ remembered Nestor calling him that, immediately after they had agreed on his plan. The plan that had backfired, leaving them with engines dead and enemies looming. His failure.

After a moment, Helios seemed to read meaning in his silence. "Has this information led you to an unsatisfactory conclusion?" it ventured, sounding almost hesitant. At another time and place, Tails might have laughed at the AI's choice of words.

"Not really, it's just..." His thought trailed off; he started again. "What's Nestor seeing? Why would he choose me, of all people?" Helios didn't appear to have an answer. Tails sighed and turned back to face his console; the screens faced back at him, returning his gaze with an equally blank reply. His ears caught a faint clicking as the camera readjusted to hang beside his head.

"I fear I have misunderstood your question," the AI said quietly – to compensate for distance, Tails assumed. "The captain's decision seems to have been the only rational option, especially since he did not foresee the outcome of this engagement."

The fox's ears tilted upright at this. "What do you mean by that?"

"I see," Helios replied, appearing to have reached some conclusion. "If my inference is correct, you are behaving consistently with my previous observations. Conversation analysis shows several instances of undue surprise in reaction to similar statements, most often judgments made upon yourself." More clicking from the actuators; Helios's eye moved into Tails' field of view. "A select few patterns continually escape your notice, despite your usual aptitude for recognizing them. In many cases you become irrational and resistant to persuasion."

"I don't see how that's any-" Tails began irritably. He shook his head, trying to collect his thoughts. "Why are you even _in_ here? Haven't you got more important things to worry about?"

"You have developed numerous information flaws, and circumstances mandate immediate correction."

"What makes you think I'm the one who needs correcting?" he demanded. "Maybe you should work on that 'zero percent uncertainty' instead of telling me how to think."

"Delusion and shortsightedness will cost this vessel far more than any technical error," the AI shot back – sharply, Tails was startled to realized. Was it just part of the interface, or had he touched some virtual nerve? "I have recognized your anomaly for some time, but until this moment I grossly misjudged its extent. Your degree of estrangement from the actual state of events is quite intolerable – truly, it exceeds my capacity for expression. You have taken no action in response to the hostile presence aboard this vessel, nor have you given indication that you plan to do so. A true Terroran officer, were he guilty of such apathy, would have his authority suspended; an intelligence unit such as myself would be disconnected without hesitation. By your inaction, you show disregard for the duties of your position and indifference to the welfare of your comrades."

The final jab was too much for Tails to bear. "I _know_ my duty!" he snapped back, rising quickly from his seat. "I _know_ what I owe everyone here – for following me, for risking their lives, everything! And in case you've forgotten, I just failed all of them!"

"_You fail them now!_" Helios shouted, lens-light flaring, electronic voice distorted by an uncanny screech. For a moment Tails swore he smelled ozone, but the scent vanished before he could be sure. Pilot and steward held one another's gazes for several seconds. About the same time as Tails realized he was, in fact, trying to stare down a computer, the AI spoke again.

"Adversarial behavior will accomplish nothing, Lieutenant," it said.

_Says the one who just heated up his EMD._ With some effort, Tails kept his silence.

"Unless you are willing to cooperate, I cannot help you," Helios continued in the same flat, not-quite-threatening tone.

"Then go."

For fully two seconds, Helios stalled.

"Excuse me?"

"I said 'go'," Tails repeated. "If there's nothing for you to accomplish here, go."

"Lieutenant, I... do not follow." It was the first time Tails had ever heard those words from a computer. He might have felt pity for the AI; it sounded lost, like a child accused of something it could barely understand. This was an illusion, however – an affectation of emotion designed to manipulate him. It had to be. Computers couldn't experience emotions, only emulate them, and always toward some end. Helios had shown both anger and guilt with the same purpose: to weaken Tails' resolve.

_Hang tight, Helios; you're in for a jarring._ "I'm telling you to get out of here and go do something useful," he answered, making no effort to dull the edges of his words. "How hard is that to understand?"

"Lieutenant, if I may-"

"That was an order."

"A moment, please," Helios insisted. The request was so simple, so reasonable, that Tails gave slightly. Not very far, but slightly. "I have no desire to comply with an impulsive demand," the AI continued. "Given your record, you will be unlikely to make such a demand after being pressured to use reason. If you will face the monitoring device and repeat your order in a fashion befitting your rank, I will oblige."

_Make me look him in the eye. Clever,_ Tails thought derisively. Helios was trying yet again to placate him. That wasn't going to happen. With defiant resolve, he turned and met the AI's cool blue gaze with his own. "Helios, you are dismissed from the bridge." He spoke slowly, deliberately, making sure each word carried the weight of ten.

The steward gave a small nod. "Understood, Lieutenant." After a final pause, Tails turned away, letting silence consume the bridge once more. _Hephaestus_'s mechanical harmony had ceased, as had the alarmed shrieking of the klaxon. In their place was the noise of the Metarex cruiser – a low, sinister growl that would have made more sense coming from a tank than from a starship. Over time, the fox's eyes wandered – past the frozen hologram of the corvette, over the screens on his inactive console, across the transparent walls revealing the cosmos outside, to his own hand placed unconsciously on the flight controls. Nothing had an answer for the questions suddenly cascading through his mind.

_Oh, what's the use?_ he wondered, turning back to face the AI. "Heli-" He stopped; the space directly to his left was empty. Craning his neck around further, he saw the camera firmly in its socket, lens dark. The terminal displayed a solitary triangle of blue lines, just as Tails should have known it would. He had issued the order himself.

Something was wrong. Tails had wanted to be left alone, to beat the irritating computer at its own game, to think to himself, _Good riddance._ He had the first two, but his mind refused to give him the third. Where was the satisfaction he should have gotten from catching Helios off guard – from actually _freezing_ the meddlesome AI's processes for a few seconds? He had won, but victory was conspicuously absent.

In the near-silence and solitude Tails had restored, a single question resounded.

_Now what?_

**[I've had such a long time to reflect on this scene that I've already extrapolated (and resolved) the implied sub-plot in my head. I typically improvise all but the most general story components, and much of my time on this chapter was spent navigating through a logical traffic jam. I may have found the key to avoiding future delays.]**

_

* * *

_

_Hangar, privateer corvette vessel _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association _

_9:25, 40-5-467 TN (Alliance time)_

"Alright, everybody lend your ears. There's a lot at stake here and no margin for error, so we can't afford any confusion," Nestor called, not turning back or slowing his pace as the narrow corridor gave way to the expansive hangar bay. The footsteps of the improvised regiment echoed metallically, making them sound like a force of thirty or more. Despite this, only seven would stand against the invaders – seven unprepared, unrehearsed crew against a mechanized task force whose numbers were anyone's guess.

Cosmo couldn't speak for her companions, but from where she stood, the Metarex had a strong upper hand. True, they had beaten worse odds on the _Blue Typhoon_ – and now, as then, Tails was at the helm – but something in _Bladewing_'s manner was unlike any foe they had encountered during the war.

"Go to full combat readiness," Nestor ordered, startling Cosmo back to awareness. After a pause, he abruptly threw out his arm and came to a halt, nearly causing a collision. "Helios, do you copy?" he demanded, apparently speaking into thin air.

"Aye, captain," the AI replied over the intercom. "Class-A security measures are in place; my apologies for the delay."

"How much time do we have?"

"Breached areas are offline and under full lockdown. No activity has been detected since impact; note, however, that I lack visual input."

"Understood," Nestor acknowledged. "Set up a smart comm link between the bridge, _Dione_, and all of us." The captain turned on his heel to face the assembled crew. "Who here's a match for a Marauder drone?"

Sonic, Knuckles, Shadow, and Amy stepped forward, their expressions ranging from apprehensive to resolute. Cosmo stood fast, knowing she wouldn't last five seconds against one of the armored war machines; they could aim and discharge their weapons in three. Nestor briefly sized up the volunteers and nodded, appearing satisfied.

"Congratulations, you four; you've just been promoted to security personnel. For lack of a proper briefing, your job is to make sure nothing hostile gets past this hangar. Helios will let us know if anything develops, and I'll be on the network if you need me. Best of luck to you." He typed something into his comm-piece, bringing the nearby _Dione_ online, and started toward the gunship as its gangway descended. Behind his back, the newly-appointed defenders exchanged perplexed looks.

"Hey, wait just a minute!" Knuckles called. "The four of us have to somehow fight off a ship full of Metarex while you go... where?"

"I'm taking _Dione_ outside," Nestor answered over his shoulder. "If there's a single crack anywhere on that ship, I'll put _vurfioma_ through it. With luck, they won't ever make it past the bulkhead." **[**_**Vurfioma**_** = tungsten. Literally, it means "hungry metal" or "metal which eats," referring to the enormous amounts of tin consumed by the refining process.]**

"That's it?" Amy asked, a note of disbelief in her voice. "That thing took half your arsenal without a scratch, and now your brilliant plan is to use the other half?"

"Yes," Nestor said, "on a defenseless, stationary target." He had reached the end of the gangway by this point and stood with a hand on the rail, facing them. "Every vessel has openings, and they're far easier to hit when they can't dodge."

"Is that so?" Amy replied sardonically. "Well, while you're testing your _theory_, the Metarex will be cutting their way in here! What about _this_ defenseless, stationary target?" She jabbed a finger at the floor for emphasis.

"That's your job," Nestor explained with a tone of impatience, as if he were repeating a well-established fact. "You said you could repel Marauder drones; be prepared to do so."

"I said _a_ drone," Amy shot back, striding forward, "_not_ a platoon of them! _Not_ the number that could be on that ship! _Not_ with them all shooting at once! _Not_ with two children in the line of fire! And _certainly,_" she stopped, her fiery glare mere inches from Nestor's look of astonishment, "_not_ because you tell me to."

Listening to Amy's tirade, Cosmo couldn't decide what was stronger – the fury in her voice as she advanced on the captain, or the deadly conviction with which she spoke the final words. It was hard to tell who was more surprised: Nestor, the target of the outburst, or those from Möbius, who had known Amy for years and yet had never seen her this angry. She found she didn't know which side to take. On one side stood her acceptance of their course and commitment to its completion; on the other stood a growing sense that Amy's judgment of their captain might be correct. **[Let me just say that I find scenes like this very annoying to write. A part of my brain reads meaning in any sort of repetition, demanding that I break up the pattern at all other times. The result? Wasting precious minutes to find synonyms for "reply" and causing unnecessary wear and tear to the Ctrl+F hotkeys.]**

After several seconds, Nestor broke the silence with a cough and took a step up the gangway. "What do you suggest?" he asked simply.

"Evacuate," Amy replied. "Use that gunship of yours to get everyone out of here while we still have time."

"And abandon my ship to those pirates?"

"If it means saving all of our lives, yes."

"No," the captain answered, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, but losing _Hephaestus_ is out of the question."

"Keep this up and you'll lose a lot more than that," Knuckles shot back, advancing toward _Dione_ with fist-spikes bared. Sonic darted into his path, halting his progress before any damage could be done. "What?" the echidna demanded. "He's trying to use us as cannon fodder!"

"If you could tell bow from stern, I'd be happy to let you do the flying," Nestor retorted, still keeping his voice level.

"That's not the point," Amy interjected. "What are you hiding? What could you _possibly_ have on this ship that's worth going up against that thing to protect?"

"Movement in the landing area, captain," Helios reported. "Vibrations are consistent with a single bipedal unit, currently non-aggressive."

"I can't say," Nestor answered. "But even if I could," he added quickly, forestalling general uproar, "I don't know enough to answer you properly."

"Captain-"

"Understood," he replied impatiently. "What I _do_ know is that the Marauders want it, and they want it badly enough to gamble a ship for it. Those engines aren't running because they like their own noise; we're being taken somewhere."

Cosmo looked in the direction from which the grinding emanated, remembering the holographic image of the two entangled vessels. She could see _Bladewing_ in her mind's eye, spires turning, dragging _Hephaestus_ like a speared fish, slowly and inexorably, toward her unknown destination.

"Every minute we spend debating our course of action is a minute _they've_ spent strengthening their position," Nestor continued. "We have to function as a single entity – no delays or hesitations. I need you to honor our agreement."

"Honor!" Amy burst out. "I made a promise to a captain, _not_ a pirate!"

"And your promise is intact," Nestor replied. A pause followed; the pilot laid a hand on the guardrail beside him. "Since I brought you all here, the Marauders have promoted me from faceless would-be victim to high-priority target, mostly because I keep surviving encounters with them. I'm not compatible with their plans, and that makes me a threat. Yet, even with every bottom-feeding lowlife in their fleet dead-set on my annihilation, no one's managed to take the fire out of me. It's still right here." He struck his chest emphatically. "How much credit can I take for that?"

Nestor's eyes scanned the assembled crew, making contact with each person in turn – perhaps searching for the answer none of them seemed ready to give. "I say one part out of eight," he continued. "I trust you – all of you – with my life just as completely as I do myself. Not because you took an oath, but because you've proven your ability to keep me alive time after time."

"And now we're supposed to do it on command," Shadow cut in, speaking for the first time since _Bladewing_'s appearance. Nestor stifled a growl.

"Scorch it, what have I done wrong?" he shot back after a short pause, flinging both hands down at his sides in an ineffectual gesture of frustration. "All this time, everything we've been through... Tell me, what did I do?" Yet again, no one answered, which only seemed to make the captain more agitated. "Tell me!" he demanded. "Have I forgotten anything, neglected anything? Have I misled you? Have I put you in undue danger? Have I given you _any reason_ not to trust me?" He waited for a second or two, then gave a vexed sigh and assumed a too-straight posture, letting the question hang unanswered in everyone's mind.

"I don't know," Cosmo replied softly, more to herself than to any of her crewmates. The metal walls and tense atmosphere begged to differ, however; she might as well have spoken normally for all the subtlety her words achieved. Heads, eyes, and ears turned to her with varying degrees of suddenness, their owners all looking somehow surprised at who they found themselves facing. Nestor said nothing, only looked steadily at Cosmo with a series of changing expressions – first a slight start, then a moment of mild perplexity, followed by a long contemplative look with his head slightly to one side, which slowly gave way to a quizzical frown. The observers, as if sensing that some intangible link had formed between the Seedrian and the captain, made no sound.

"How long have you been awake?" Nestor inquired at length, continuing to look puzzled.

Cosmo, already beginning a half-formed reply to "What do you mean?", was thrown off by the question. Puzzled, she mentally ran through the preceding conversation, and was still wondering what train of thought could have led to such an obscure and seemingly irrelevant detail when Helios spoke up with the answer.

"Awareness was first confirmed one day-cycle, one hour, and approximately forty minutes ago inside a sealed medical capsule. She later recovered and assumed responsibility as unspecified crew personnel."

"Unspecified?" The question came from Amy.

"She never got her assignment," Shadow replied, once again breaking his silence unexpectedly.

"No... she didn't," Nestor echoed, seemingly to himself.

Unbidden, a sense of recognition surfaced: that tone was familiar. _Not to himself,_ Cosmo realized, recalling the captain's frequent pauses in conversation and the uncannily detailed insights that had puzzled her since their first meeting. _To Helios._ Even as she thought it, Nestor frowned, eyes focused somewhere to his right – an expression not so much thoughtful as attentive, like a careful listener receiving advice. Satisfied that this confirmed her theory, Cosmo wasn't entirely sure what to make of Nestor's secret. _Just how much does he rely on his computer?_ Another thought shouldered its way in behind the first: _Maybe he really doesn't know why this ship is so important._

The Seedrian's train of thought was soon interrupted as Nestor, following a cough and a barely perceptible nod to his invisible confidante, addressed her with an uncharacteristically formal tone of voice: "Cosmo _Nukranomun_, are you ready, willing, and able to commit yourself to the directives of this vessel, the authority of her captain, and the welfare of her crew for the duration of your... er, passage?"

Cosmo's first impression (after wondering briefly what was meant by the single word of Terroran) was that this was obviously a prepared speech. The answer should have been obvious; hadn't she already demonstrated everything Nestor asked for? She was about to give words to this response when she caught sight of Amy watching her intently, waiting for a reply. The Seedrian almost didn't have to look to sense everyone else in the hangar doing exactly the same.

All at once, the reason for their attention hit her: _'Your promise is intact.'_ Cosmo had passed this and many other confusing statements off as details she shouldn't need or expect to understand. She was, or had resigned herself to be, a crewmember with no direct bearing on the vessel's course – an outlier. This suited her perfectly well, but it was apparent that circumstances were demanding otherwise. Her friends and allies would not put her at risk, nor take any action, without her consent.

By no conscious desire of her own, the outlier had become an integral part of _Hephaestus_'s fate. As the realization sank in, Cosmo felt herself trapped by another: _I'm not ready_.

Outside, Metarex engines continued to turn.

* * *

**For those who are wondering, _nukranomun_ means "name that lacks" or "missing name" - in context, "having no immediately available surname."**

**By now, I have a plan that will get me from here to the conclusion, but suggestions are always welcome. How would Cosmo, the one the fans know, answer?**


	25. Chapter 24: Uncertainty

**07Mar12:** Hello again, everybody. Yes, I'm completely and unshrinkingly aware of how long this has taken. Yes, parts of it really were written very soon after the last chapter was completed. Yes, I've only just finished it. Yes, this story is still in progress. I think that covers everything I have the desire or ability to cover; don't let me keep you waiting any longer.

** P.S.:** I'm playing with the formatting a bit, chiefly titles and data/time headers. Feedback is encouraged.

**Read & review.**

* * *

**Chapter 24 – Uncertainty**

_Hangar, privateer corvette _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association_

_9:30, 40-5-467 TN_

The question should have been simple.

That was what Cosmo found most perplexing: the act of declaring her commitment to ship and crew had become separate from what it was supposed to represent. That she would not hesitate to follow a capable captain's lead, and that she would do anything in her power to protect her friends, were beyond certain: they were part of who she was. _Stating_ her devotion, on the other hand, would be binding in ways that simply _showing_ devotion would not. How that was possible, she didn't know.

Or perhaps she did: perhaps she would be taking the side of the captain, whether she agreed with him or not. She examined Nestor's face again; he was regarding her with curiosity, showing no sign of nerves. He had done the same thing as Amy, and indeed the entire crew, bombarded him with accusations – just watched them, as if a thinly-veiled threat of rebellion were no more than a routine status report.

Cosmo's anxiety peaked, and suddenly she despised Nestor – despised him for keeping his composure, for not getting desperate or angry with his crew, for consulting with Helios – a computer, the ship's _piloting computer_ – in the middle of a conversation, but most of all, for having the gall to just _watch_ her that way as he forced her sense of loyalty into conflict with itself.

Just as quickly, Cosmo hated herself for thinking it. Nestor wasn't her enemy; _that_ was a little farther away, behind the steel wall only half as thick as the doors it had already torn through in mere seconds. Nestor was right on one count: there wasn't time to make enemies or spare feelings, only to reach a decision and act.

One question managed to separate itself from her confusion: why was she suddenly expected to align herself? Surely, the issue wasn't about to be decided by a _vote_... not with so much at stake. For that matter, why was everyone so vehemently opposed to Nestor's plan, when they had all braved much steeper odds against Metarex forces in the past?

Cosmo turned to Sonic, to Knuckles, to Shadow, to Amy, searching each of their faces for some form of insight. Nowhere did she see any trace of fear or impatience – only expectancy and, for some, uncertainty. She wondered what her own face looked like to them. What did they expect her to say? What did they _hope_ she would say?

To her growing frustration, she couldn't tell.

Finally, she turned to Cream – the closest person to her, and the only other member of the crew who had not yet given her opinion. Cosmo gave her an inquiring look. In response, the rabbit shook her head – not a very clear answer, but an answer nonetheless.

Was she advising her not to take the pledge? Perhaps – but why would Cream, quite possibly the only person Cosmo knew might be more trusting than herself, be in favor of overruling Nestor's authority? Nor did Cosmo believe she was merely saying "I don't know;" the rabbit had seemed sure of herself, whatever she meant to communicate.

As suddenly and dramatically as the final wire in an electric circuit, the solution fell into place. Cream was telling her, "Don't ask me" – not because she didn't have an answer, but because she wasn't the target of the question. Amy and the rest had no intention of abandoning their mission – indeed, they were trying to uphold it. To look to them for advice was nonsensical; they had already made their decisions, and none had any intention of backing out.

Then and there, Cosmo knew what her answer would be. Meeting Nestor's eyes with an expression that she hoped looked as confident as she now felt, she nodded. "Yes," she said, then more loudly, "I am."

The tension in the hangar broke with an audible rustle from the crew, some of whom had apparently held their breath as the question hung in the air. Nestor half-grinned, hid it quickly, and spoke before the crew's collective attention could be lost. "Very well. You have something to contribute?"

"Er-" Cosmo faltered, a little surprised at the abrupt return to the previous conversation. After a moment's thought, she turned to the crew and answered. "I think we should stand our ground, like Nestor says. If they've come here for us, surrender will only help them – whatever they might be planning."

"We don't have to fight them, you know," Amy said hesitantly. "We can escape with _Dione_, maybe, if we're fast enough..."

"A display of generosity that our Marauder shipmates would surely appreciate," Nestor interjected. Amy fixed him with a threatening glower, prompting him to continue: "...But, yes, it's certainly possible."

"The nature of our situation has already been made clear," Helios commented. "I suggest we proceed without unnecessary repetition."

Captain and crew fell silent once more, stalled by the AI's logic. Offhand, Cosmo noticed that the hangar's aft wall was rotating clockwise – probably a side effect of the corvette's backup gravity system. With everything else going on, she had forgotten to question the familiar sense of up and down.

Metarex engines growled.

"We'll be putting ourselves in great danger, yes," the Seedrian said into the collective hesitation. "It doesn't seem fair to ask that of you, especially since you've already put yourselves in harm's way just by coming out here. But... I still think we should stay." She paused to weigh her next words, then realized it wasn't necessary. "I've only just realized it, but you didn't have to do it – to come back for me, I mean. I thought there must be something left to take care of, but... there isn't, is there?"

"What difference does it make?" Knuckles interjected, sounding mildly impatient. "We're a team – same fight, same goals, same wins and losses. We look out for each other."

"Right," Cosmo replied. "And now that we _are_ back together, I'm ready to do my part again. So... I won't ask you to put yourselves in danger for my sake, but I won't ask you to retreat, either." She paused, took a breath, and silenced the last of her uncertainty. "I'm ready."

"As are we," Shadow spoke up, breaking through the start of yet another drawn-out silence; no one disputed him. By a sort of unspoken consensus, the crew returned its full attention to Nestor.

"Excellent." A short pause. "Helios, is there some reason for the absence of a running comm channel?"

"None further, Captain," the steward answered. "Channel designated, network active. All functional waypoints are online and standing by."

"Also excellent." Nestor stepped backward, making eye contact with the crew once more. He gave a single terse nod – a simple gesture that communicated what words could not – before _Dione_'s hatch swung upward and sealed. As the gunship's hull shifted in preparation for flight, the captain's voice issued individually from each of the crew's six comm-pieces.

"Your briefing is complete; combat operations resume now. Helios will report any important developments and coordinate our response. You'll take instructions from him." _Dione_'s exterior running lights switched on, casting an amber-colored pool over the deck. The ship tilted backward, weapons and thrusters orienting themselves under her pilot's direction. "Be ready for anything. If all goes according to plan..."

"We know," Shadow answered, concise as ever. Again, no one disputed him.

Inside his cockpit, Cosmo imagined, Nestor nodded once again. "_Kotinakir_. Good luck."

Four yellow flames erupted from the gunship's maneuvering jets, pitching the nose upward. One short burst from the main engine and _Dione_ was airborne, canceling the rotation of the deck and shedding her simulated weight. The paired thrusters spun in alternating directions as if trying to aim everywhere at once, nudging the vessel into position with short, rapid jets of exhaust.

Someone tapped Cosmo's shoulder; she turned to see Shadow standing to her left. "You should find some form of cover," he said, indicating the multitude of containers and other features dotting the hangar floor. "Unless you have a different plan."

Without waiting for a reply, he took a low-gravity jump and alighted on a fixed metal scaffold, probably intended to hold small craft undergoing mechanical work. The rest were taking similar positions, vantage points or safe spots best suited to their individual skills. Faced with an unpredictable opponent, the crew tried to prepare for whatever might come, hoping all the while that everything would go according to plan.

* * *

_Landing bay, privateer corvette _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association_

_9:35, 40-5-467 TN_

The sound of the hangar door sealing itself shut – smoothly mechanical, far from the heavy _clank_ its size might suggest – gave way quickly to silence. Registering this, Nestor allowed his guard to relax as he maneuvered toward the axis of the cylindrical room. He moved cautiously, as _Dione_ was lightly armored, and every push from a thruster had a part in her weightless trajectory.

Taking advantage of the momentary privacy, Nestor allowed the familiar environment of the gunship's cabin to surround him. His senses attuned themselves to _Dione_'s sounds and movements to create a seamless physical interface. The sporadic start-stop of the rotary hull segments became a precise response to his control of the flightsticks; the angle of the throttle, the individual and collective voices of the engines, and the pressure of acceleration were mentally one and the same. Once established, this common language – if something so close to pure impression and instinct could even be called language – made piloting _Dione_ as intuitive as walking through a room.

To be sure, achieving this degree of control required practice, patience, and a healthy shot of self-deception. The narrow-bodied, rear-heavy assault shuttle frame wasn't designed for smooth handling, and with Nestor's additions, she handled like a loose artillery cannon.

"Any movement?" Nestor inquired, nudging _Dione_'s nose into line with the radial pattern a few meters in front of him. Barely a second after the initial impact, emergency bulkheads had sliced the landing bay into thirds, minimizing the loss of atmosphere and putting additional force-tons of steel in the Marauder vessel's path. Numerous sections of mobile wall – curved, overlapping plates of metal – formed an iris-like door with at least half the strength to stop _Bladewing_'s charge.

"Situation unchanged," Helios replied after a slight pause, glyphs flashing across the copilot's display screen.

"Still fouled up," Nestor added by way of agreement. "What's the state of the landing bay? The doors, mainly."

"Exterior lock controls are unresponsive; they were very likely destroyed when the doors themselves breached. First partition failed to close completely and seems to be jammed against the hostile vessel, but may be operable. Second partition sealed and withstood considerable force, suffering no obvious damage."

"Unsurprising, unfortunate, and excellent," Nestor replied, addressing the reports in sequence. "Clear the atmosphere out of this section, and run a test on partition two. Leave it sealed for now."

"Understood." The deck vibrated from the force of powerful hidden motors, producing a range of audible grindings and squeals – sounds straight from a mechanic's nightmares. In reality, the vibrations were entirely controlled and deliberate, a technique Helios had developed to assess the state of equipment without his cameras. The noise faded gradually in time with _Dione_'s pressure gauge as air was drawn out of the bay.

"Partition two may experience friction, but all components are sound," Helios reported. "Are you prepared to exit?"

Nestor nodded. "On my mark, crack the door a meter or so, then expand until _Dione_ has room to pass. Close it back as soon as I'm out."

"Understood, standing by to execute."

"On second thought, open it as quickly as possible. No point giving them a long warning."

"Revised, standing by."

"Leave some air in here; I could use the extra push."

"The chamber is in vacuum, Captain."

"Ah, sorry. Disregard that." Nestor took a long breath and exhaled slowly, collecting his thoughts. "Still no movement in the bay?"

"None detected. Any further developments will be reported without delay," Helios replied, a hint of admonishment in his voice.

"No sign of an ambush, then?"

"Captain, if our adversaries are in any way competent, an ambush will be hidden from the intended target." The computer's tone had changed again, though the meaning wasn't obvious. "I lack a direct view of the hostile-controlled zone; my reports are neither exact nor immune to deception."

"Uncertainty," Nestor mused, adjusting his grip on both flightsticks. Without the hollow hum of the gravity centrifuge and _Bladewing_'s incessant growling, the closeness of the pressurized cabin became almost tangible. The effect was reassuring. "We can't be sure of anything," he said, still thinking aloud.

"Naturally."

Nestor cracked a smile. "Point well made, Helios. I thought you might figure it out eventually." He snapped his mirrored goggles into position and tapped the thrusters again, correcting a slight starboard drift. A quick glance at the display confirmed that _Dione_ was in working order. "Ready when you are."

"Mark."

The spiral pattern on the door twisted, forming a circular opening at its center. The plates shuddered visibly for a moment, then snapped open to a span of (knowing Helios) precisely six meters. Nestor pushed the throttle forward as far as it would go and felt himself abruptly fall backward, _Dione_ catching him as the last secure chamber of _Hephaestus_ dropped away with a deafening roar. His arm's sudden heaviness closed the throttle for him, halting the gunship's acceleration at a controllable speed.

Beyond partition two, the landing bay was in near-darkness, power either lost during the collision or deliberately cut soon after. _Dione_'s exterior lights provided a dim view of the chamber – a stretch of silver deck visible to starboard, part of the wrecked primary airlock directly ahead, and, dwarfing it all, the mottled brown and burnished gold of Marauder armor.

_Bladewing_ only had one color on its hull.

Nestor spent the next fraction of a second considering the implications, before the cruiser lit up in a constellation of red.

"Movement," _Dione_'s instrument panel reported, but Nestor had already jerked both flightsticks to the right reflexively. The gunship tilted even as the carpet of lights rippled, spreading out in a wave along its near edge. Then the jets reached their positions and fired, lighting up the chamber in full. Nestor caught a glimpse of the aggressors before _Dione_'s nose swung in the opposite direction, registering broad diamond heads, metallic armor colored a dull brick-red, and large, perfectly round eyes.

Smaller displays activated in Nestor's peripheral vision, showing angles outside his direct field of view. Transparent markers and lines flickered over the images as _Dione_ dissected her surroundings, mapping solid terrain and singling out targets almost as rapidly as a living pair of eyes. "Proximity," the computer intoned, sounding a shrill alarm, as _Bladewing_ passed in front of the canopy again. Coming to his senses, Nestor angled the flightsticks left, trying to bring the madly tumbling gunship under control.

For one dark, weightless, uncannily quiet moment, he might not have been moving at all.

The jets fired again; Nestor felt his weight return, and a sudden wave of dizziness threatened to overwhelm what remained of his coordination. He placed a hand on the throttle and opened it to a fraction of full capacity, narrowly avoiding the Marauder cruiser's hull as he finally succeeded in changing _Dione_'s flight path. A metallic clatter sounded from outside, triggering the collision alarm again; Nestor ignored both, keeping his free hand on a flightstick, aiming for what was left of the airlock.

"Impact damage. Energizing-" The computer's alert was left unfinished. Text flashed across the display, written in the Universal script Nestor had never learned to read.

The gunship began listing to the left, following a spiral path as Nestor kept her nose trained on the exit. "Thermal damage." A purple-white glare filled one of the small displays, accompanied by a screeching rasp like high-pitched radio static. "Outer hull breach." A soft whine of metal under tension. The airlock loomed ahead, frighteningly close, frighteningly small, while the combined mass of _Dione_ and her attackers became increasingly difficult to control.

The foreign text flashed again. Nestor made out "_CEBS,_" but the rest escaped him.

"-active," the computer finished.

_Fzzzzzzzzzt-CRACK,_ flash of blue. Cutting tools, clattering metal limbs, and the proximity alarm abruptly fell silent. Nestor cut the throttle and spun both flightsticks through a complex maneuver that would never again be performed exactly the same way. _Dione_ regained her balance and straightened out, momentum from the spiraling approach forcing the craft into a tight axial spin – _roll_, Tails had called it – that held her directly on course between the hulls of the two entangled starships. In the blink of an eye she was free, the view from the main canopy showing nothing but stars.

Nestor felt the cabin lurch as _Dione_'s bow drifted out of line, threatening to send them both into a violent sideways corkscrew. He countersteered quickly; the spinning gunship unwound like a top losing speed, finally coming under control and swinging around to face _Hephaestus_. Nestor brought her to a halt with a jerk and released his held breath.

"_What_..." he coughed out, failing to shape the next two gasps of air into speech, "in _blazes..._" another breath, "did I just fly through?"

"_Dione_ has suffered only minor hull damage," Helios replied over the comm channel. "I will report momentarily. You are clear to engage." Nestor recognized the terse, unemotional tone and formulaic speech pattern: the steward was working through a complex calculation, sparing only enough processing power to give basic directions. Knowing he would have an answer soon enough, Nestor studied _Dione_'s display as her computer finished its analysis of the surrounding space.

Despite having just undergone a violent collision, _Hephaestus_ seemed to be in relatively good shape. Blackened craters and gashes from Marauder guns disfigured the smooth metal skin, and _Bladewing_'s jagged prow and hull had devastated much of the landing bay, but the four engine modules and overall structure of the corvette appeared largely undamaged. The display on _Dione_'s canopy projected a faint grid over the ship and revealed the crippling shot: one of the struts holding the ring section in place had been completely severed.

"Movement in the bay has been analyzed," Helios reported, back to his normal tone. "It appears you were attacked from several directions simultaneously, perhaps by the entire arsenal of the hostile vessel."

"Arsenal?" Nestor inquired. "I thought that thing only carried heavy weaponry."

"You misunderstand me," Helios replied. "The few recorded _Class-A_ engagements with Metarex forces have involved small contingents of subordinate units, most often bipedal and lightly armored." A schematic appeared on one of the side screens, which Nestor barely glanced at before motioning the AI to continue. "It appears that _Bladewing_'s 'crew,' so to speak, had taken position on its hull, preventing any change in the vessel's weight and masking their movement with the vibration of the engines."

Mentally, Nestor played back his confused memory of the last few minutes. His attention hadn't reached far beyond _Dione_'s cabin, but the steward's explanation made sense. He remembered the sudden swarm of red lights – glowing eyes, as over a dozen of the mechanized soldiers shifted into combat mode all at once. "Then I flew out through the partition, and they tried to jump ship."

"Correct."

"How did I manage to knock them off, then?"

"The shield array installed by Vice Prower engaged itself automatically," Helios answered. "It seems the system was able to repel the boarders even though they were already in contact with _Dione_. The result was quite violent, in fact."

Nestor cursed internally. Though he hated admitting it even to himself, he had forgotten all about Tails' additions to his gunship. The oversight could have cost him his life, but the young engineer's attention to detail had saved him once again. "What are they doing, now that they've given themselves away?"

"Uncertain. The units are equipped with thrusters, making them difficult to track."

Nestor was about to reply when _Dione_'s display twitched, outlining a section of _Bladewing_'s hull. "Focus," he ordered instinctively. A zoomed-in shot of the cruiser appeared on a screen above the throttle lever. Just behind the angled strut that supported the smaller of the ship's two engines, a pair of golden armor plates slid slowly apart. The space inside was shrouded in darkness, but from the middle of the widening gap, clearly visible, there protruded a jagged ridgeline of segmented metal.

"Drop focus," Nestor instructed, causing the screen to go blank even as his free hand darted like a spider across the instrument panel. "Set coordinates to _Hephaestus_ navigational bearing. Set engine control to short-range combat configuration. Enable throttle braking. Enable throttle reset." _Dione_'s terrain maps reoriented and centered on the silver corvette's main axis, graphs flitting in and out of view with every lightning-fast keystroke. The throttle lever slid smoothly to the center position, while the thrust gauge next to it shrank to make room for a second readout. Meanwhile, the doors had stopped moving, and the object within began to rise out of the bay.

"All turrets enable target tracking. First row, second row turrets enable defensive firing. Main cannon disable- Aah-ah, ouch! Disregard!" Nestor exclaimed as his right hand cramped unexpectedly. He released the controls with both hands and massaged the errant muscle, never taking his eyes off _Bladewing_ as the seconds passed in frantic silence. Hundreds of yards away, _Dione_'s amber lights flashed across a single round lens; Nestor recognized the bulbous shape from fighters he remembered seeing in old military records. _The Metarex are Marauders._

"Focus," he ordered again, then flexed his still-sore wrist and tapped the maroon ship's enlarged image. A yellow reticule appeared on the display, signifying _Dione_'s identification of the fighter as a target. "Drop focus. Arm forward cannon." A low whir issued from beneath the deck – a sound that never failed to make the pilot's fur stand on end – as two large capacitors filled with a growing electrical charge. Without anyone down below to load fresh canisters into the railgun, he would have to fire sparingly; all the same, he couldn't have asked for a better shot.

The Marauder fighter came to a halt and raised two narrow arms, each tipped with a small engine cone, like a seedling sprouting leaves or an insect opening its wings – a bizarre, alien hybrid of plant and animal.

The railgun _clunk_ed as a shell entered the bore, poised to slide directly between the two electrified rails that ran through more than half the gunship's length. Nestor placed a finger over the firing trigger in readiness.

"Forward cannon standing by." The reticule changed from yellow to orange. Nestor had barely enough time to catch sight of a golden glow on the smaller Marauder's face, hidden from view by the colored icon an instant before; then the trigger clicked into position beneath his grip.

Laser fire lanced from just below the fighter's eye, tinted green by an equally dazzling blue flash as _Dione_'s shields intercepted the beam. Nestor's harness jerked backward as the railgun fired with a loud _whunk_, followed by a second flash that was most definitely _not_ supposed to happen. A glowing streak of hot metal hurtled into deep space, far below its intended target. In the middle of the reticule stood the dark purple fighter, unscathed.

Somehow, the Marauder had deflected his shot.

The fighter's cannon glowed again; Nestor yanked the flightsticks to starboard, and the laser traced a spiral path along the protective shell of energy. _Dione_ lurched out of the hasty evasive maneuver and accelerated toward one of the engine modules on _Hephaestus_'s ring, pursued by an unsuccessful third shot as she exited the Marauder's field of fire.

"Helios, keep your eyes open on the outside. I've just been engaged."

"Understood."

Nestor watched on his rear cameras as the fighter slid free of _Bladewing_'s supports and pivoted toward him, winding up its three spiked rotors to give chase. _Dione_'s lateral cannons turned slowly, following the gunship's targeting system until the silver bulk of Module 2 passed between the two combatants. Ahead, the angular engine block tapered into a long rib that curved smoothly down toward the bow, where it joined with three other identical supports to encircle the main body of the corvette.

"Hostile has entered scanning range, direct pursuit," Helios reported.

"Help _Dione_ keep track of it."

"Understood, sensor relay active."

The reticule winked back into view, now a pale gray as it moved over a stretch of unpainted hull that hid his opponent from sight. Nestor banked closer to _Hephaestus_, keeping the broad support beam between the fighter and himself as the railgun began charging again. _Dione_ settled into a gentler movement pattern as she gained speed, rolling from one shallow turn into the next, making none of the sudden moves characteristic of normal fighter combat – not for the moment, at least.

The tiered cone shape of _Hephaestus_'s body approached rapidly on his port side. Nestor swung _Dione_'s nose to face nearly opposite her flight path and edged the throttle forward just slightly, catching a glimpse of the pursuing fighter and, more importantly, knowing it would catch a glimpse of him. The hull quickly obscured his view again, but a change in the gray icon's path told him the Marauder had gotten the message.

Immediately, he opened the throttle to half-capacity, swerving tightly around the corvette and accelerating after his foe. They circled slowly, Nestor staying out of view as the fighter flew to intercept what it _thought_ was the gunship's course. The cannons turned in unison as _Dione_ crested the corvette's nose to find a clear line of sight to the Marauder's back. No time to evade, no way to counterattack, no warning.

"Proximity."

Two Scattershot anti-armor shells went wide as Nestor slammed the throttle lever downward, throwing himself against his harness with the full force of _Dione_'s brake jets. A violet shape of painted metal shot past the canopy, mere feet away from collision, before banking into a broad turn as all _three_ combatants disengaged. Nestor steered around and took off along _Hephaestus_'s length, shouting half-formed threats that he knew the fighter would never hear.

"Second hostile fighter sighted," Helios informed him calmly, highlighting the new arrival on his display.

"Thanks for the warning, _numbskull_!" Nestor shot back, switching languages to employ one of Amy's favorite insults.

"...Correction, third hostile fighter," Helios amended himself. The pilot opened his mouth for a reply that never came, then slowly, almost reluctantly took a second look at the rear camera feed. Another yellow marker had indeed joined the others, and all three were moving into position to tail him. For the first and last time in living memory, Nestor cursed the steward's accuracy.

"Get me in contact with Tails," he instructed, a note of resignation entering his voice. "We need a plan."

* * *

_Bridge, privateer corvette _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association_

_9:40, 40-5-467 TN_

"They already have a plan, though."

Sudden movement outside the bridge canopy caught the kitsune's eye, jolting him out of his wandering thoughts. Tapered violet shell, whirling gray-brown engine cones, forward-facing lens like a drop of black ink... _Metarex_, he recalled effortlessly. _Light fighter, operates in small squadrons. Single bow-mounted laser. Very fast._

A column of orange and white streaked past the opposite side of the corvette, flooding the bridge with amber light before it vanished from view. _Nestor._ Tails' breathing quickened; the two ships had finally entered combat, and at least one of them would never leave.

Two distinct yellow flashes caught the fox's eyes next, barely visible on the reflective inner surface of _Hephaestus_'s hologram projector. The bursts were the right color for Metarex lasers, but they could just as easily have come from _Dione_'s heavy kinetic guns. It was impossible to tell without sound.

The Metarex fighter bolted past again, twisting evasively as it flew, but uninjured. Something about its trajectory struck him as unusual, but he ignored the nagging feeling, attention riveted on the silent, invisible confrontation outside. A few more seconds elapsed in which Tails stopped breathing entirely. No word from Helios, no sound from the comm network. _Please._ No reports, no alerts, absolutely nothing to go on. Silence and stillness. _Please, please, for the love of Chaos, please..._

In the distance, all four turning jets blazing with the effort of a sharp turn, _Dione_ swooped back into view.

"Thank you," Tails sighed aloud. No change to the score yet.

As he relaxed, the throttle and steering levers on his instrument panel suddenly sprang back to their default positions, startling him. In the heat of the moment, knowing Nestor was in battle without a copilot, Tails had taken hold of his own flight controls without realizing it – years of habit and muscle memory at work.

Then two more violet-armored shapes flew briefly into sight, and the mystery of the first fighter's flight path was solved. The familiar Metarex attack pattern appeared in Tails' mind just as he had witnessed it dozens of times: a group of ships splitting cleanly into thirds, peeling apart in a climbing half-corkscrew (a "wingover" in airplane terminology), and diving back in on their target in three identical, simultaneous strafing runs. With one fighter out of formation, the deadly symmetry of the maneuver had been lost, giving Nestor and _Dione_ the chance to escape.

That was what it looked like to Tails, at least. Nestor was the only one who could see it firsthand; his assessment was infinitely more reliable.

The fox jumped again as his console chimed loudly, signaling a transmission from inside the corvette's network. He bumped the touch-sensitive screen clumsily with the back of his hand and rearranged himself in his seat, trying to look professional despite the fact that nobody could see him. "Bridge command," he said hurriedly.

"You're still there?" It was Nestor's voice, along with _Dione_'s multitude of subtle background noises. "Never mind, stupid question. Status update, now."

"I- what? Status?" Tails stammered, mindlessly repeating the captain's words as he tried to organize his thoughts. He hadn't expected Nestor to call, he didn't think Nestor _needed_ to call.

The hedgehog huffed impatiently. "I need a _report_, Tails. What have- _Oi, kobukra!_" He broke off mid-sentence as the audio filled with a loud roar. Nestor grunted, probably from the powerful acceleration, before the engine's noise faded. "_Dione_ is in trouble up to her gunports out here, understand?" the pilot continued, nearly shouting now from combined stress and annoyance. "Tell me what I need to know!"

"I was-" _Not doing anything useful for reasons I can't possibly justify?_ However much sense his determined inaction (he couldn't think of anything else to call it) had made just moments ago, it suddenly seemed exactly that. Nestor had shocked all of his rationalizations right out of his mind.

"If I may, captain?"

"By all means."

_Well, that's one question answered_, Tails thought dryly, oddly relieved at the interruption. At least the AI would be honest; it couldn't be blamed for whatever programming oversight their anger – _his _anger – had uncovered. Helios would explain the situation in no uncertain terms.

"A number of control units have begun showing abnormally high error rates, affecting routine work as well as standard performance tests."

_What?_

The channel remained silent for a brief moment. "Helios, are you damaged?" Nestor asked, surprising Tails with the unfamiliar note of concern in his voice. He recalled the AI "accidentally" contacting the bridge – how improbable such a large error had seemed, so much that it _had_ to be an excuse... _Zero percent uncertainty..._

"The sources have been identified and quarantined, and assets reallocated as needed," Helios reported. Both Nestor and Tails suppressed sighs of relief. "Allowing for the loss, I am back to full operating capacity. I have not, however, determined the exact nature of the damage, and therefor cannot assume permanent containment. Under current conditions, a full investigation is beyond me."

The line filled briefly with a blast of static, which Tails recognized as magnetic interference: _Dione_'s railgun had fired again. "_Menuka!_ Crafty bugs!" Nestor shouted angrily, pounding his fist on an unused area of the dashboard. "Can you survive until we get these pirates cleaned out, at least?"

"Even if that were an exact time frame, I could not be sure," Helios explained calmly. "_Inur_ Prower has agreed to investigate the problem, with my occasional advice."

_...What?_

"Just as long as you're making yourself useful, kid," the captain replied, addressing Tails directly. "Keep us updated, _korakna_? I can't tell who's sitting on hotter coals at this point – the Marauders, or us."

"I- _Kora_," Tails croaked, and a second later the channel fell silent. The young pilot slowly removed his headset and placed it back on the console, completely engrossed with his efforts to make sense of the chaos of new information. "Helios," he called, and his ears caught the distinctive whir of the cable unspooling itself from the wall. He frowned, composing his thoughts. "Can you... lie?" he asked carefully, turning to face the camera that now floated snake-like beside him.

"I have standing permission to employ partial and temporary deception in pursuit of major objectives," the AI answered without a glimmer of hesitation. "My latest report involved a procedure derived from those instructions."

"But why?" Tails shook his head to clear it, realizing the dozens of questions he might have been asking with those two words. "Couldn't that be... well, _dangerous_, if you tried it at the wrong time?"

"Operating standards do not allow me to knowingly lead my charges to conclusions which I consider to be false. I have determined that, if information may not be accurately summarized in the available time, it is acceptable to fabricate a more direct path to the appropriate action."

"What did you just do, then?" Tails persisted. "I haven't been working on _anything_, and you just..." He trailed off. _...Covered for me,_ his thought completed itself silently. It wasn't such an unusual favor for a person to give, but coming from a computer, it seemed completely nonsensical.

"Are you capable of assisting this ship in a time of crisis?" Helios asked, reminding Tails of a physics teacher preparing to introduce vector components for the first time. He repeated the answer one of his classmates had given:

"Not as far as I know."

Helios nodded its eye once. "That was not your answer during our last discussion. You have indeed been working, and I see evidence of significant progress."

Tails stared in puzzled silence, trying without success to trace the AI's logic. The cable flexed into a long arch above his head, positioning the camera directly over the control panel. Its cyan glow dimmed, allowing him to meet the computer's gaze without hurting his eyes.

"Consider that this vessel is capable of operating without a crew; this is the reason for my existence. You have been assigned a command position which is, strictly speaking, unnecessary, but which nevertheless includes many high-priority tasks. The captain would not entrust all of your duties to even himself."

"We already-"

"Consider also," the AI interrupted with pronounced emphasis, "the circumstances of your promotion. It is possible the captain addressed you as 'Helm Vice' accidentally or simply forgot to announce a decision he had already made. In either case, he has consciously allowed your rank to stand."

"Helios, that doesn't-"

"I disagree."

A few seconds passed as Tails tried to remember where his latest argument was headed. "How do you know what he was thinking?" he retorted, recovering his train of thought. "Maybe he let it slip out by accident; I know I've done it before."

"The captain and I have been in frequent conversation since you dismissed me from the bridge," Helios answered. "I have addressed you as both 'Lieutenant' and '_Inur_' with no sign of confusion, and the decision is entirely consistent with my profiles of both Nestor and yourself."

"I know that already," Tails replied, mildly annoyed.

"Naturally, but your analysis is incomplete." The camera tilted to one side in what was probably meant as a quizzical expression. "If I may apply my own terms to your mind, you have given the variable an unduly narrow range of applicability. You are completely aware of the respect others hold for you, and the legitimacy of their opinions."

"But... sometimes I forget about them." He meant it as a completion of Helios's thought, but ended up saying it to himself instead. Not one part of his divided conscience, however critical or self-righteous, rose to defend him. _Guilty as charged._

Helios clicked its lens-cover impatiently. "If you are curious, my latest deception hinged on calculated ambiguity rather than fabrication." The cable formed into an S-curve, shifting the camera to a more relaxed position at Tails' eye level. "The mainframe is both decentralized and highly integrated, causing a peculiar mutation of terms; 'the ship' may be synonymous with myself in certain contexts."

Tails frowned. "Don't you think- I mean, what's your point?" He had thought about criticizing Helios for its apparent lack of focus, but he sensed the story was relevant somehow.

"As our pilot, you are a key component of the vessel's control system," the AI continued. "You began to distort information and ignore instructions soon after collision with _Bladewing_, and a routine communication attempt confirmed the anomaly. An unknown internal conflict had interrupted your situational logic and compromised your ability to serve as helm officer. I attempted repairs until you instructed me to focus on more immediate concerns."

Surprised and more than a little skeptical, Tails mentally replayed what he could remember of the AI's report. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see the connections – tenuous at times, but certainly believable enough for a not-quite-lie. _Affecting routine work as well as standard performance tests... Identified and quarantined, and assets reallocated... Cannot assume permanent containment..._ It made a strange, amusing kind of sense: the ship's pilot, part of the control system! He didn't know whether to laugh at the absurdity of the metaphor or be impressed by how paradoxically fitting it was. **[Metaphysical poetry in a nutshell.]**

It was even better than that, though. Helios wasn't allowed to intentionally mislead, only to deceive in specific ways. This meant, at some level more important than factual detail, the AI _believed_ everything it tried to communicate. It made no difference how irrationally Tails had been acting, or what had passed between him and the computer, or how much of Nestor's trust the whole ordeal would have cost him. Helios believed that he, Tails, would find a solution in time to join the fight for _Hephaestus_. That was all he needed to know.

* * *

_Hangar, privateer corvette _Hephaestus_ – Interstellar space, Orion OB1 association_

_9:45, 40-5-467 TN_

_Ca-ca-CLACK._

Cream jumped as she heard the drone land against the far side of the wall. No matter how many times the sound reached her ears, conjuring nightmarish images of teeth snapping together, hooked talons tearing through bark, unfamiliar shapes flashing across the night sky, and countless other hard-coded remnants of a time older than memory... No matter how many times Cream heard that noise, it never failed to startle her. Taking a breath to steady her nerves, she reminded herself once again of a single comforting fact:_ It's still coming from the first room._

Hoping to get rid of the instinctive fear her mind attached to the sounds, Cream tried instead to picture the drone itself: tall and bipedal, every edge and corner sharpened or ridged in some way, but at least somewhat familiar in appearance. They reminded the young rabbit of creatures she had seen once in an aquarium exhibit. _What are they called, again?_ she mused. Strange beetle-like amphibians with great bicycle-helmet heads that took up half their body, many of them nearly as long as her arm, slow and cumbersome in their heavy armor, and utterly harmless.

_Horseshoe crabs_, she recalled after a moment's thought. The broad heads and segmented bodies of the Metarex soldiers reminded her of horseshoe crabs.

_KI-cla-cla-KI-cla-cla-cla-KI-cla-cla-KI_. Instantly, the sound garnered her attention. The drone was crawling along the wall, perhaps using its empty glass eyes to scan the surface for Chaos-knew-what. Cream tilted her ears as far forward as they could reach (a difference of about two inches), tracking the metallic footsteps with a precision none of her friends could match. It sounded as if the arms and legs were working separately, creating two very different rhythms that overlapped one another as the machine climbed.

_KI-cla-cla-cla-KI-cla-cla-KI-KI._ The drone had stopped in place.

_TIN-tin-tin-tin-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-zi-zi-zi-zi-zi-i-i-i-i-i-i-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEE-_

Cream threw both arms over her head and pressed her ears down as tightly as she could, trying to block out the sudden deafening screech of _whatever_ the drone was doing to its side of the wall. Cheese bolted for the security of his owner, squeezing into the gap between Cream's elbows and nuzzling fearfully against her face. The whimpering of her terrified Chao somehow carried over the noise, reminding her of the one thing that could conquer any of her fears: _Not alone, not alone, not alone._

_...EEEEEEEEEEEzzzi-ki-ki-ki-ka-KA-KA-KA-ZZZzzzzzzwwwwwmmmm._ Without warning, the deafening scream broke up and faded abruptly into silence.

"Cho..." Cheese crooned through the ringing that filled Cream's ears, reassuring her that the awful noise had finally stopped. Unfolding her body from the terrified ball she had unconsciously curled into, she quickly scanned the hangar and located each of her friends in turn. Everyone seemed to be recovering from similar reactions to the noise, except, of course, Shadow.

With a start, Cream realized her comm-piece was ringing. She retrieved the device from a pocket of her dress – the watch-style band didn't fit her wrist properly – and recognized Tails' icon even before she answered the call.

"Sorry I took so long," the kitsune burst out, almost before she had time to hold the device up to her ear. "What's happening in the hangar? Are you all safe?"

"Don't worry, Tails, we're not hurt," Cream answered. She heard several people voice their agreement and realized the channel must be open to the rest of the crew. "The drone didn't do anything except climb on the walls and make a lot of noise. That's all."

"...Noise? What do you mean?"

Before the rabbit could elaborate, the same _TIN-tin-tin-tin_ echoed through the hangar again. "I'll tell you later, Tails," she explained quickly; it would, after all, be terribly rude to hang up without any warning whatsoever. "The noise is too loud to talk through."

No sooner had she said it, however, than the growing wail shifted abruptly to a much lower, brass-like note, not unlike the horn of a diesel locomotive. Just as quickly, the noise vanished entirely, only to resume seconds later in an erratic series of groans, squeaks, scratches, and clear musical tones that not even Cream's sensitive hearing could make any sense of. The succession of sounds resolved themselves at last into a single bass hum, so subtle it could have easily escaped notice on its own.

However, nothing startled the crew half as badly as the sound they heard next. In a harsh, rasping cacophony of every ear-splitting, teeth-grinding sound the invaders had produced yet, the thick wall of double-plated steel spoke.

"Metarek_szzz_ Ne_vfii_ a_szzz_ult cru_zz_er Bled_viinnn_, inve_jj_un fo_errszzz_. Alla_oov_ entr_ii_ _oov_ithin fa_iivf_ minit_szzz_, o_err_ _oovii_ _oov_ill comen_szzz_ bo_err_d_iinnn_. Di_vf_a_ii_an_szzz_ lead_zz_ unl_ii_ to di_vf_eat."


End file.
